How to Land the Hot Guy 1.0

A multimillionaire by the age of 27, app developer Evie James is clueless when it comes to hooking up. So she does what any self-respecting geek-girl looking to get laid would do: she programs her own app for landing a hot guy. After a few failed attempts at making contact, beta testing leads her to Caleb Anderson.

Caleb is used to female attention, but finds himself attracted to Evie because of her unique brand of awkward. A master of one-night stands, he’s more than happy to show her what she’s been missing in the bedroom. But he quickly discovers that one night with a woman like Evie will never be enough for him…

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

To Jessica Lemmon. Remember that time we brainstormed this book in a hotel lobby in Kansas City? I do. Thank you.

Dear Reader,

I love a geek girl. I think that’s evident since they pop up in my books often. The truth is, I’m a geek. I’ve been known to dress up for movie premiers. I may, in fact, own an elven cloak.

So when I got the chance to write a book for Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon, I knew I wanted to put a geek girl at the center of it. A woman who’s smart, tough and savvy in so many ways…but not necessarily in the ways of dating.

From there (and from latent Ryan Gosling fantasies) came my hero, Caleb. A man who has nothing together at all…except his dating skills. Or, rather, his pickup skills.

I’ll be honest—wearing an elven cloak did not bring Ryan Gosling to my yard. (And by the time I met my husband, the cloak had been retired from being worn in public). But Caleb is certainly attracted to Evie’s personal brand of quirkiness.

And isn’t that one heck of a fantasy? A guy who appreciates the things about you that are unique? And who doesn’t make you get rid of your Lord of the Rings memorabilia. (Okay, my elven cloak is hanging in my closet. Yes, I still have it. My husband has accepted it.)

Of course, as smooth as Caleb seems, once he and Evie hook up, it’s clear who actually has it more together out of the two of them. (Hint: not him.)

I hope you enjoy Crazy, Stupid Sex. The geekiness, the hotness and the unicorn burrito. (You’ll see.)

Happy reading!

Maisey

Crazy, Stupid Sex
Maisey Yates

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Books by Maisey Yates

Chapter One

Acquire social lubricant. Check. Step three of this theoretical man-landing mission was complete. She’d already put on panties that would make her feel confident and sexy, then found a bar in the right part of town that was sure to contain the right sort of people.

Now she just needed to relax so she could engage a potential mate.

Evie James looked down into her pink drink and frowned. She didn’t feel particularly socially lubricated. Or lubricated in any fashion, really.

She was nervous. Shaky and neurotic and nervous. This was what years of hiding in her office had gotten her. What years of dating the same boring man who hogged the covers and treated the female orgasm like an elusive, nonexistent unicorn that didn’t bear hunting for had gotten her.

She didn’t know how to pick up men. She knew how to program apps. How to manage a team of creatives. How to sell and market what she created, to a whole roomful of people if necessary, and she had a few million dollars in her bank account that stood as a testament to that. On a personal note, she also knew how to find a moving service to get your rat-bastard ex’s shit out of your apartment and have it delivered to his mother’s house in boxes marked “things to clutter up your basement when your man-child returns.”

Yeah, she knew how to do that.

But picking up men? New men she had never talked to before? Men she wanted to do sexual things, not business things, with? Not so much.

Not that she was actually going to do any sexual things with a guy tonight. She just needed to see if she could get one to take her bait. So to speak.

She sucked up more pink drink through her straw and waited for some magic to happen. None.

She tugged her iPad out of her purse and opened up the basic mock-up of the app she’d been using as a guide. Flirt magazine had commissioned her to create this app that would be a field guide for fashion, flirting and hooking up.

Right now, the app needed some beta testing. And she was the one testing it. Because hell, if it could work for her it could work for anyone.

She clicked on the “10 Dating Tips” article and skimmed to number four.

Put yourself out there! You don’t have to wait for a man to approach you. That went out with corsets and stays. The rules of the dating game are in your hands.

Her shaky, sweaty hands.

Sweet.

She looked around the bar. It was so dim. She wasn’t sure how anyone was supposed to tell how attractive the people around them were. Though, maybe that would work in her favor. Whilst she’d followed the “How to Get a Smokey Eye in Three Easy Steps” guide religiously while getting ready, she was privately afraid she looked like she’d been punched in the face.

So maybe the dim lighting would work in her favor.

The guy across the bar was actually pretty nice looking. He was wearing that standard blue business shirt, collar open, his tie probably ditched in whatever fleet car he drove. A company car, she was willing to bet. He had an eight-dollar haircut. That she was sure of. She could see the razor tracks from twenty feet away, but that wasn’t so bad.

He probably sold something. Insurance maybe.

So maybe she could get a little ego salve and a good rate on a policy for her motorcycle all in one night. That would kind of rock.

She stood up and started walking toward him before she could overthink it. Before she could think at all.

A wall of cheap body-spray scent greeted her when she got within five feet of him. She nearly gagged. They needed serving-sizes on that crap. She’d banned it in her offices. The young male interns completely believed the commercials that promised random ménages with strangers and seemed to bathe in the stuff before work. It gave her a headache.

It was giving her a headache now.

That didn’t bode well for the flirting.

She really would like it if she could manage to stun a guy with her witty repartee and stunning beauty. If she could get a guy to ask her to come back to his place. Partly because she was trying to figure out how successful her app was, and partly because she really needed the boost to her self-esteem.

The loss of Jason the Ass, and the fact that he’d been sleeping with another woman, had dented her confidence. A little male interest would go a long way in fixing that. Not all the way to the bedroom, mind you.

She couldn’t even imagine that being worth it. In her memory, sex had never been so hot, in spite of rumors to the contrary.

It had been a long time for her. Even longer since sex had thrilled her in any capacity.

Jason had been boring in bed. There. She’d admitted it. And yes, she was probably a little bit boring in bed, too, but that man hadn’t made her toes curl in years, and even then, he hadn’t made them curl with any consistency.

Someday, she would investigate if the toe curling was real. If the panting and sweating and things that her friends always talked about, that the magazines said were possible, were in fact possible.

Her entire sexual career boiled down to one man who seemed to think foreplay was a golf term.

It was partly her fault. Because she’d been seventeen and a virgin the first time she’d been with him, and she’d basically just kept being with him because she hadn’t known what else to do. They’d followed each other through life. Through college and their first apartment. Their first jobs. And then her quitting her job to develop apps. And her ensuing success.

Success, which had, apparently, made him feel neutered and had forced him to seek greener pastures. And by greener pastures, she meant another woman’s vagina.

Bastard.

The thing that sucked, really sucked, was that when she’d come home from her office to find him with his head between another woman’s legs she’d been pissed about two things.

The first being that he’d said he didn’t like that. Always. He’d tried it on her once, and said he hated it. And he’d never done it again. So, there he was after ten years with her, doing it for another woman with an enthusiasm she’d never seen from him before.

Yeah, that had pissed her off.

The second thing was that she wasn’t brokenhearted.

The realization that she didn’t love him anymore either was a hard one to swallow. Because in some ways, even though she was angry, she just felt free.

Free to move his things out. Free to tell him to leave. To tell him to enjoy life without his meal ticket. Free to put on music he hated and dance in her panties and go to bars to pick up men who got her much more excited than Freaking Jason.

It had made her angry because it was ten years of her life, poured out on a guy she couldn’t even cry over.

Her most righteous and frightening anger was at herself. Six months she’d had it stewing on the back burner. She hadn’t wanted to date. She’d barely wanted to look a guy in the eye because it just made her a little stabby.

Her poor interns.

Then she’d gotten the offer to do this app for Flirt. And that had plunged her into research on dating, hookups and sex. Which was why she had sex, and toecurling, on the brain when she’d successfully ignored the concept for quite a few months.

She’d already compiled a profile for herself in the app. The things she would need, with her personality and experience level, to pick up a guy.

Now, it was time to see how it worked. In theory, at least. All she needed was for him to indicate he wanted to hook up, and then she’d know that her app was a success. And that she actually had a snowball’s chance in hell of having another relationship someday.

“Hello,” she said, moving to where the guy was sitting. “Evie, Evie James.” She stuck out her hand and stood, waiting for him to reciprocate.

He did eventually, but he had that look in his eyes that her sisters usually got whenever Evie was trying to explain something techie to them.

“Brent.”

“Nice to meet you, Brent,” she said, smiling broadly. She mentally went through the list again. “A drink,” she said. “I’d like to buy you one.”

“Okay,” he said.

Damn this was awkward.

But she was pressing on. She had her Flirt profile all set. She had “10 Tips to Land a Guy,” and she was going to do just that.

* * *

Caleb Anderson had watched the thin, awkward redhead approach three different men and bomb out in the last ten minutes.

It was like watching an overeager puppy try to make friends with cat people. Sad. It was sad.

Of course, he was a thirty-five-year-old man in a bar on a Friday night hoping to pick up a stranger for sex, so he imagined he was a little sad, too.

But his chances for success were much higher than hers. So there was that.

He could hear her voice carrying over the music. She was loud. Everything about her. From her steps in her stilettos to her laugh, was damned loud.

“These heels are making me blister.”

Oh man. She was so awkward.

“Really, I never wear shoes like this.” She was still talking about her feet. And now bending down to pull a shoe off. She was wobbling, but caught herself on the bar before she face-planted onto the glossy marble floor.

The guy she was talking to seemed willing to overlook the awkward. At least for now. Probably because the girl had a fine rack on her, at least it seemed that way from his vantage point.

Might be one of those lying gel bras. False advertising at its most insidious.

And now her shoe was off. And her weirdness officially trumped her rack. The guy she was talking to was zoned out now, his gaze on the blonde across the room.

Caleb had assessed the blonde already. She was boring. She wasn’t awkward, but there was nothing special about her. Her legs were nice, but he’d had a lot of blondes with nice legs. He could see exactly how the night would go. He could take her back to his place, take her to his room. She’d wrap those legs around him and they’d both work their way to orgasm, while the blonde did her best not to sweat her makeup off.

He liked the ending, but the journey just didn’t excite him much.

Damn. Sex was starting to get boring. He really did need a hobby. One beyond picking up women in bars, apparently.

The redhead wasn’t boring. She was weird. But she wasn’t boring. Sex with her? He couldn’t predict that. And that interested him.

Caleb got up from his table and walked across the bar, his eyes on her. She was trying to get her shoe back on now, and she was oblivious to the fact that she’d lost her audience.

She looked up, her hair spilling over her shoulders, all glossy and sexy, her lips drawn into a pout.

For the first time since he’d seen her, hot surpassed weird as his primary descriptor. Her eyes were still on the guy who was now very much trying not to look at her. He’d never seen a woman as pretty as her strike out so hard so many times in a row.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

She looked up and her eyes went wide. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I had one.”

“Only one?” he asked. He’d sort of imagined she was a little tipsy. If she was sober then she was extra weird.

“Yeah, just the one. I didn’t want to get drunk.”

“No, I can see why you wouldn’t,” he said.

“I was talking to Jeff here,” she said, looking back at the man who was no longer looking at her.

“You were done talking to Jeff,” Caleb said. “Or rather, I think he was done talking to you.”

“I think he’s playing hard to get,” she said, arching a brow.

“I think he can hear you,” Caleb said.

The woman stepped away from the bar and lowered her voice. “Well, he was.”

“Men don’t play hard to get,” Caleb said. “Men want to have sex. Every guy in here by himself wants to have sex tonight. Hell, every guy in here with a woman wants to have sex tonight, their odds just aren’t as good as the guys who are alone.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, Evie.”

She frowned. “How do you know my name?”

“Evie, Evie James, you’ve introduced yourself very loudly to several men in here since I walked in. I observed.”

“Well…I…I…that’s just annoying,” she said. “Eavesdropping, I mean. Eavesdropping is annoying.”

“This is where you ask my name,” he said.

“I’m not sure it is.”

“Yes, it’s polite. Caleb Anderson. And your pickup techniques aren’t working.”

“I’m doing research,” she said, her tone sharp. “For an app.”

“An app?” he asked, interested now.

“I’m an app developer, that’s what I do.”

“See? That’s interesting. Your heel blisters aren’t.”

Freckled cheeks turned deep red. “But they hurt.”

“Sorry. Want me to rub ointment on it?”

“Having a man rub ointment on your feet is nowhere in the guidelines.”

“Guidelines?”

“I have these guidelines. I’m using them to make the app. For Flirt magazine. Yeah. That one. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s like…a big deal.”

Now, that was a twist he couldn’t have predicted. But then, this was the hangout for people who worked in that arena. Which he knew, not because he did, but because it was a good place to pick up businesswomen who wanted to blow off steam.

He knew the magazine well. One of the many glossy-paged ponies in his father’s media stable. It had been enlightening to him as a teenage boy discovering women.

It had been like being behind enemy lines.

Part of the empire that would have been Jill’s. Now it would be his someday as the sole surviving heir. He didn’t like to think about it much anymore. And the connection almost sent him walking back the other way.

He didn’t need any emotional baggage; he just needed a little fun.

But Evie James was interesting. And the desire to be interested was stronger than the desire to turn away.

“The women’s magazine with all the sex tips?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the one.” She leaned in, one eyebrow arching. “And I’ve been reading up.”

Evie was starting to wonder if she really was drunk. A feeling of desperation was making her behave like an ass, and she knew it, and now this guy was talking to her. This guy who didn’t even look like he could possibly be real.

He looked like he’d stepped off the pages of some business magazine. Perfectly cut suit, expensive watch and shoes. And his haircut had not cost eight dollars.

No, his dark hair was perfection. She wanted to run her fingers through it. Or pull it. That was one of the sex tips she’d read. Some guys were into that.

And now he was talking to her. She wished she were in a business meeting. Then it wouldn’t matter how hot the guy was, she would know what to say. She would know what to do with her hands.

She wouldn’t be so sweaty.

She was beyond competent in every other area of her life and she just didn’t know how to do this.

The damn app needed to be able to flirt for her. Give a command, and it would do her bidding. But that was asking a bit much of artificial intelligence.

Siri, I’d like to get laid…

There are ten horny, sexy men in your area.

Not likely.

“So, what’s in your app?” he asked, leaning on the bar.

“Nothing finalized yet. I mean, I’m not writing all the content, I’m programming it. Though I am taking some things straight from articles. You can create a profile that helps customize your fashion and flirt type. It has…hot spots, to help you find the right kind of guy for you. You know, athletes, businessmen. You can send messages. There’s quick dating tips and…sex tips.”

“Sex tips?”

“Yeah,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Sex tips. Fifty of them.”

“Fifty? I’m going to have to hear about those.”

Evie took a deep breath and leaned in a little, ignoring the fact that she wobbled on her heels a bit. Ignoring the fact that she was so nervous she could hardly breathe. She had nothing to lose. Three unsuccessful attempts already and she was starting to feel like a failure.

It was time to lay it all on the line.

“What if I showed you instead?”

Chapter Two

Steps five through eight had effectively been skipped. She’d moved straight to step nine: The Proposition. The only thing after this was Closing the Deal. And that was a thinly-veiled euphemism for “letting him put his penis inside you.” Which was not her desired end result, but, really, this should provoke him to suggest a deal-closing. Which would technically mean she was a rousing success and could go home and put on her flannel pajamas.

In theory.

Her dating history wasn’t super illustrious. One man. She’d been with one man, and they’d hooked up in high school, and back then, her standard for a datable male had been A) breathing and B) not oblivious to her existence. Jason had been both of those things, and so one night they’d sort of ended up sitting at the same table at a popular burger hangout and the rest had been history.

She’d given him her V card as a matter of course. He’d asked her to prom, he’d brought her a corsage. And he’d gotten a hotel room you could rent by the hour. He’d done the expected things, so she’d done the expected things.

And thus it had gone on.

Well, that wasn’t her anymore.

She didn’t need a relationship. She didn’t want one. Hell, she was a woman at the top. A blinking multimillionaire by age twenty-seven, and no one had helped her get there. It was all her.

She was in charge. And she was going to have Caleb the annoying bar hottie to demand she show him her sex tips!

“You want to show me your sex tips?” he asked. His lips were curved into a half-smile, and rather than looking uncontrollably aroused he looked…amused. That wasn’t what she was going for.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. That’s what I said. You. Me. Sex. Tips.”

“Tell me something, Evie.”

“Okay.”

“Why is it you’re out to pick up a man tonight?”

“The app.”

He shrugged. “Okay, you win the prize. You’ve picked me up. Now you don’t have to follow through. Your methods worked. The app is a stunning success.”

She frowned. This was supposed to be sweet victory, and yet, in the moment it rang hollow. “You seem so into it, far be it for me to doubt whether or not I’ve scored,” she said dryly, “but I sort of doubt it.”

“But say you had. And that it all worked. Do you want to follow through?”

She blinked. She looked around the bar, at the guys she’d struck out with. If they’d asked her to go back to their place she’d be back at her place alone drinking a Moscato. She for damn sure would not have said yes.

But Caleb asking if she wanted to follow through?

The idea was tempting in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

“I…the data is skewed because you know about the app,” she said. “I can’t ever be sure.”

“Sure you can. I would like to take you back to my place and have sex with you, Evie. What’s your answer?”

She opened her mouth and nothing came out. And that’s when she realized, she was seriously considering naked touching with a stranger. And she’d been warned about strangers. No matter how much candy a guy claimed to have in his van, she knew better than to go with him. She knew that.

Yeah, she was nervous as hell. And if any of the other guys were standing where he was? She would be saying game over. Flirt level: Awesome, achieved. No sex required. Just as planned.

But now? Now she was looking at this guy, the hottest guy she’d ever seen, and thinking why not?

Because this wasn’t about an app, or a flirting experiment. This was about demanding something other than mediocrity. Something better than a guy she got naked for just because he was there and it was expected.

She wanted a guy who would tear her clothes off like she was a present on Christmas morning. And she’d never had it. She’d never been able to ask for what she really wanted. And any time she’d tried, Jason had just acted like she’d asked him to hide a body, not go down on her. That list of sex tips? She would have been too embarrassed to leave it on Jason’s pillow, much less verbally ask for any of them.

And what was that? She was a professional woman who had total control over her life, and yet she’d never asked for what she wanted in bed. She’d never pushed for excellence there, even when she demanded it in all other areas of her life.

“Okay, you want the truth?” she asked.

“Depends.”

“On?”

His smile widened. “If I’ll like a lie better.”

“I 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 a bar. And it was amazing.

When they parted, they were both breathing hard.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Did I agree to go with you?”

“I’m sure you did. Anyway, doesn’t your list say you need to go with me?”

It did, in fact, say that leaving the bar and securing a hotel room or returning to a residence was the next step. “Yes, it does.”

“Do you have a car?”

“No, I got a cab so I could drink. Which…not drunk but a little bit dizzy, so probably a good thing I’m not driving.”

“I’ll have my driver bring the car around.” He pulled out his phone and pushed a couple of buttons. “Ready.” He hung up again.

“A driver?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you got fired from all your jobs.” Granted, his clothes spoke of money, and she’d noticed that from the first moment she’d seen him.

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice the silver spoon in my mouth,” he said.

“You’d think I would have noticed when we kissed.”

“You would think.”

A sleek black town car pulled up to the curb and Caleb opened the door for her, waiting. “So I just get into the car with you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to hurt me?”

He arched a brow. “Only if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m not.”

For some reason, just then, she pictured him wrapping her hair around his hand and giving it a hard tug. That was tip number twelve. She remembered it well because reading it had made her feel warm all over.

Made her think that it was something she might really, really like.

“Then no. I won’t.”

“Good to know.”

“Getting in the car with me, going home with me…I don’t take it for granted that means you’ll sleep with me. But you want me. So I don’t think you should say no.”

“You’re so sure of yourself?”

“Sure of this,” he said, tracing her lips with the tip of his finger. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling a little fuzzy.

“Are you going to make me beg?” he asked. “Because I just might. I could get down on my knees if you want. Though, I’d rather have you on yours.”

Heat coursed through her veins. Yet another line that shouldn’t have turned her on, but did. But who the hell even cared what should turn her on? The fact was that he did.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want,” he continued. “But if you ask…there isn’t a lot I won’t do.”

She looked around and took a deep breath. “That might actually be nice for a change of pace,” she said, getting into the car and leaning back against the seat.

“Will it?” he asked, his tone cautious, his movements slow as he got into the car. Like he was taking special care not to frighten her off.

“Well, you know, battery-operated devices can only do so much.”

“And they can’t talk dirty to you.”

“No. But then, neither did my ex. The buzzing sound is actually an improvement over listening to him mouth breathe during the main event.”

“Ouch,” Caleb said, chuckling. “My place, right?”

Evie pictured her apartment. It was clean, and it was nice. Redecorated since Jason had moved out. But she still had the same mattress. Which she’d never really thought of. But now it bothered her and she wasn’t quite sure why.

“Your place,” she said.

She’d rather contend with the ghosts of Caleb’s hookups past than her own.

“Take us home,” he said to his driver. “So, do you think you’ll be able to use this for your app?”

She almost said what app? but stopped the words from spilling out just in time. “Oh…yeah. The app. This will be very helpful. The ten man-catching tips are verified…”

“Sort of.”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“And now you can see how those sex tips work,” he said. “If you really want to.”

“Some of them are pretty wild,” she said.

He laughed. “I’m sure they aren’t going to shock me.”

Well, that made one of them. She had a feeling she would be shocked a few times. She was shocked now. Or maybe in shock. She was numb everywhere except for her lips, which were burning from that kiss, and between her thighs.

There was wet and aching. She wanted him so much it hurt. Wanted in a way she hadn’t since before she’d discovered how sex really was. Since before her body had become conditioned to expect the buildup to be better than the finale.

“I might like it if you shocked me a little,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she’d said the words loud enough. It was hard to hear over the traffic. Even harder over the pounding of her heart.

“How shocked do you want to be?” he asked, his voice husky, low.

“Well, this would be one of those one night things, right?” she asked.

“That’s all I do.”

“Okay then. So if it’s one night—” she looked up, met his eyes in the darkened car, and playing hard to get was completely forgotten “—then you’d better make sure I never forget it.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes darkening, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I think I can handle that.”

Chapter Three

Of course he had a mansion on the beach. He was that kind of guy. A sleek, modern mansion that looked like a cubist work of art.

Windows faced the ocean, the moon glinting off the waves. Palm trees and oleander surrounded the property, making it feel secluded. An oasis on the crowded strip of Malibu coast.

“Wow. How laid do you get?” she asked, standing on the front step, waiting for him to key in the code that would unlock the door.

“What?”

“I mean, if your ridiculous lines at the bar hadn’t worked…this place…”

“It’s not bad.”

“I’ve been thinking of buying a house, but for now I’m in a loft downtown because…well, I don’t need a yard or anything. But you’re making me rethink.”

“I think a loft downtown is an excellent seduction location,” he said.

“You do?”

“I do. If you’d taken me there I would have given it up in five seconds flat. Any man would be powerless to resist your city views.”

“And now that we’re here, how long will it take for you to give it up?” she asked.

“Five seconds flat,” he said. “I’m impatient.” He pushed the door open and she walked inside, her hands shaking big time now. She was turned on, and nervous as hell, and for some reason the nerves element was only making her more turned on, which…which was making her teeth chatter.

It was a whole lot of adrenaline running through her just then. She needed to run a marathon real quick or something.

“Could you kiss me again?” she asked, as soon as he closed the door behind them.

“I was about to get to that. But I thought you might want a drink. I’m not taking anything for granted with you.”

“That’s…flattering. But I don’t want to drink. I want a kiss. Because when you kiss me, I can’t think.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

She nodded. “If I start thinking I might run out the door. I’ve only just wrapped my mind around this one-night stand thing. I’m a little shaky.”

“You flatter me.”

“Well, I don’t do this kind of thing.”

“I do. A lot.”

She laughed. “That makes me feel better. I don’t think it should.”

“Why not?”

“I should be offended that I’m just one in a long line of women you take back to your place for sex and good views.”

“You’re the only one tonight.”

“Screw you. That should not be hot.”

“It is, though,” he said, putting his thumb on her cheek and tracing a line from there to her temple. “You like it. And as it happens, I like your response. Because I would very much like you to fuck me.”

Her chest tightened, her heart rate speeding up. No man had ever, ever said anything like that to her. Ever. And she’d never thought she would like it. But she did. She really did.

“I’d like that, too.”

“So polite.”

“Too polite?”

“For a discussion about getting screwed? Maybe.”

“This is why we should just kiss,” she said, moving toward him.

“I won’t argue.”

Caleb wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, brushing her hair back from her face before he leaned in and captured her mouth with his. It was deep, intense, not like any kiss she’d ever experienced before. Hotter than any sex she’d ever had and he wasn’t even touching her body.

It was just his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

The little zip of pain that shot from her lip straight down to her core when he bit her gently rocked her. Shocked her.

And it made her think of him pulling her hair again. Bending her over the back of the couch. It made her think of hard, rough sex. The kind she’d never experienced.

The kind she’d always secretly craved but never asked for. Because Jason didn’t even want to go down on her, so what the hell would he have thought if she’d started begging him to bite her?

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