Page 20 of He Has Pluck

“Is that what I am? A distraction? Is that what you want? What you need?” I see the misgiving mixed with the raw hunger in his eyes and the twitch in his jaw muscle like he’s holding back. Holding all kinds of damned-up need back as if he’ll explode and—

He takes hold of my shoulders and pulls me to him, slamming me hard against his body, sliding one hand down against my ass and clamping on, pressing me into the most knee-weakening hard-as-fuck cock I ever felt while still fully clothed. And suddenly, only the thought about why we’re still wearing clothes takes up all the space in my head, and tongues of pleasure lick through my body, turning me into liquid. Literally.

Shit. I pull back as his lips feather over mine, and I get the sensation of a bullet whooshing past me in a near miss.

“Let’s bring our drinks into the great room,” I say, striving for nonchalance. But my comfort is as shallow as my words, disappearing as my breath hits the open air. I pour some Glenlivet into a glass and add some ice from the fridge door dispenser.

“Does this mean you’re going to answer my questions?”

“Why?”

“It’s either that, or we find another way to pass the time.” He follows me with his beer. I stop near the oversized sectional. It’s big enough. Serviceable for passing the time activities if that’s where we’re going.

But is that what I really want? I don’t give a fuck what Ruminski says. This is about me and making up my own mind about whether or not Hockey Boy is worth the potential for distraction. I look him up and down as he claims me again, planting his hands on my hips and moving in for that magical connection. I use the term “magical” loosely here. Or maybe not, because as our zippers meet and I feel the heady pressure again of his hard-as-fuck cock against me, knowing I get to him this way makes me dizzy.

“Okay, I suppose we should get to know each other. That doesn’t mean you get to ask anything you want. I’ll tell you about my professional background.” I drag him with me to the couch. “Let’s sit and behave professionally.”

“Why start now?” he says, far too amused.

“I hate smugness in a man.” Not exactly true, but I need to knock him back, diffuse whatever this compulsion is between us to touch or be touched. It’s purely physical, and as much as I’m into sex for pure physical pleasure, he shouldn’t be the one.

He cough-laughs, and I disengage completely from his hold as I sit. But the couch conspires against me, and I sink into it, and he sinks next to me so that we’re in this cushiony well compressed together by the laws of physics and an old worn couch’s foam and springs.

“This is cozy.” His dark eyes and suggestive lips hover close. The scent of him wafts and mingles around me. Everything about him pervades and confuses the line between us. I sink further back but he leans in. “So tell me about your last adventure. In Columbia.”

The shock of the words coming from him stop me for a second from my usual quick comeback, sending a spike of fear like a dart through my consciousness.

“No,” I say automatically, but meaning it because I’m not going there with him. “I’ll tell you about the time I went to Somalia to film pirates with a journalist who interviewed them, and how we stayed in a fishing village and had to leave in the middle of the night when a boat came in whose pirate captain didn’t trust us to keep them anonymous. One of the women warned us, and we rode with them all night until we reached a U.S. Air Force operations base a hundred miles away.”

“The Air Force rescued you?”

“No one rescued us. We called our helicopter pilot from there, and he flew in from the plains of Wajir County in Kenya to pick us up a day early. We had one scary moment when the pirate, who shall remain nameless, and his crew showed up on the edge of the Air Force outpost—can’t even call it a base—and there was some waving of guns. But the pirates quieted down when a troop of soldiers showed up with enough firepower to turn them into dust.

“The post commander told the pirates they ought to know better than to pick on Americans, especially journalists. The pirates left. I think it was the words even more than all the guns aimed at them that scared them. They were afraid of scaring the Americans away because who would they steal from without them?”

“You filmed it all.”

“Of course. Won first place for that documentary in the Annual IDA Documentary competition.”

“Of course, you did. Who doesn’t love a good pirate story?”

I laugh in spite of myself.

“You mean besides the pirates?” Maybe it’s the whiskey loosening me up, the warmth of his solid body against mine, the intense attention of his eyes on me, the wanting in his smile—all making me feel drunk, out of control. Making me stare at his mouth, the closeness of it, making me want to touch it. With my mouth.

“When you’re not out in the wilds filming nefarious subjects, what’s your secret guilty pleasure?” There’s no hint of a smile on his lips.

“Seriously?”

“As the pope. Tell me. What do you do when you need to let off steam?” He takes a drink of his beer.

My gut does a jelly impression as I stare, and he doesn’t back down from his intense interest, looking like his intention is to eat me for a midnight snack. What the hell am I afraid of?

“Sex,” I tell him. “Preferably with a guy I’m attracted to, but I have a really good vibrator that’s been with me through—”

He almost spits his beer, but he swallows it in an impressive show of self-control and holds up his hand, trying not to let his grin crack his face in half.

“Don’t look so comically pleased,” I say, frowning.