My Daring Seduction

He hadn’t tied one on like this since the night he broke off his engagement to Jenna. Every second of that horrible conversation would linger in his mind until the day he died—her tears, her begging, the stabbing guilt. Then her abrupt transition into rage and accusations, mostly unfounded, though a few had hit their mark. He remembered every second of his trip back to New Haven on the train, then his cab ride from the station to Naples, the Yale campus bar. After that, things got blurry fast. The next morning he’d woken up naked on the bathroom floor of his dorm with no memory of how he’d gotten there. That had seemed like a pretty good time to decide he’d done enough drinking to last him a lifetime. After that it had been no more than two drinks, no matter what, no matter where, no matter who with. Or with whom. Or who whatever.

Until tonight. See how much goodness and joy Lindsay Beckham had brought into his life? Exactly…none. Nothing but frustration, emotionally, sexually…whatever other lys there were that he couldn’t think of right now.

No more. Enough. He was finished. Done. Operation Lindsay was terminated. She could stay icy and shut down forever. The next day he’d turn in his resignation at Chassy. And why did she call it that anyway? Screw it. Screw her. Or rather no, no screwing her.

That thought hurt too.

He was disgusted with himself for spending a whole year of sniveling after her over and over again. Please open up to me, Lindsay. Please tell me your problems. Tonight was the worst. “I can’t have sex without emotion, Lindsay. Kiss me first, tell me you love me…”

That was it. He was turning into a girlie-man. No, she was turning him into a girlie-man. If he was going to do that, he might as well become gay so he wouldn’t have to deal with women at all anymore.

Crap. He needed to go home. No, he needed a cold swim. He was losing it.

He got up unsteadily and paid for his drinks, staggered in the doorway and caught his shoulder hard on the jamb. Maybe driving wasn’t a great idea. He’d leave his car here and cab it out to Brookline.

Half an hour later, he’d managed to hail a cab, remember his parents’ address, pay the driver and make his way through frosty air that smelled like snow to the Robinsons, next door to the small house his parents had moved into after he left home. They’d wanted to keep a residence in Massachusetts but intended to spend most of their time traveling the world. Which they had. They’d be back in March from their year in Paris, London and Greece. By then he’d better have a plan for the rest of his life to avoid being a thirty-five-year-old man who still lived with Mommy and Daddy.

He used his key and pushed open the sliding door to the pool, stripped naked, nearly falling on his face when he tried to balance on one leg to take off his pants. Then he dove in, swam a few furious if sloppy laps, then a few more, feeling his head clearing slightly. Finally he climbed onto the raft, only slipping off once, and lay back watching the clouds overhead.

Between Lindsay’s behavior tonight and the threat of parental cohabitation, he would finally get his act together, leave Chassy and do what he was meant to do in a place that would appreciate what he had to offer. Then he’d—

“Well, hello-o-o.”

Adrenaline preceded his rational reaction. What the hell was Adele doing here again tonight? He’d never encountered her two nights in a row. It must be nearly two o’clock.

“Nice night for a swim.”

“Yeah.” He slid back into the water, annoyed. He couldn’t help it. He’d wanted to be alone to think. Or alone so he didn’t have to. One of those. “Where d’you come from every night?”

“I’m in the neighborhood.”

“Which house?”

“My uncle lives down the street. I’m visiting for a while.” She lifted her shirt over her head, and his drunken brain registered that her bathing suit didn’t look like a bathing suit. “I’m just back from a party and felt like a swim before bed. I had the cab drop me here.”

She undid her jeans and stepped out of them. The bottom half of her bathing suit didn’t look like a bathing suit either. “I hope you don’t mind but I didn’t bother getting my suit. I didn’t want to wake my uncle just to get it and then wake him again when I got home after.”

Her underwear was lacy, he couldn’t tell what color in the dim light. Maybe black, maybe red, very skimpy. He suddenly remembered he didn’t have a suit on either. Why hadn’t he done as she did and kept his underwear on?

Because he didn’t know she’d show up, wasn’t thinking she might. So fine, he’d stay in the water where she couldn’t see anything and hope she left soon. She could swim in her underwear, and he’d—

Except… He swallowed convulsively. She was taking her underwear off.

Clouds hid the moon tonight, but the lamp outside of the pool area cast enough of a gleam that he could see…well, he could see. Her breasts were large and full with small dark nipples; the hair between her legs was waxed into a tiny strip. Her shape he already knew was stunning.

She shouldn’t get in the pool naked with him. He wanted to say something but he was caught in the stupid male tug-of-war between what his brain recognized as the right thing to do and what his dick did.

She climbed down into the water, step by step on the ladder, her fabulous curving ass swinging provocatively and swam toward him. He didn’t resist. Not when she wrapped her legs around him, not when she gave a tiny exclamation—not of disappointment—when she realized what he didn’t have on either.

Suddenly his brain shut down, his hands went to her waist, then slid up beside her breasts, which seemed to hold him in some kind of stupid enthralled enchantment. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t keep himself from wanting to touch. His thumbs slid over her nipples—he swore his damn thumbs were acting on their own. This wasn’t him. Why wouldn’t his brain work? Her head dropped back in the kind of rapture that looked really fake, like she’d watched too many porn movies.

He moved his thumbs back to her sides. His mind restarted. This wasn’t real. This wouldn’t be anything more than making love to a great pair of tits.