As she hacked up the huge gulp of beer she’d sent straight into her lungs, her eyes stung with tears. Gage’s form wavered, but the smug little smile he’d been wearing might have faded.
“Cassidy?” He leaned toward her.
She held out a hand, the coughs tapering off. “Did you say gigolo?” she managed to squeeze through her tight throat.
“Shit.” He set his beer bottle on the floor and leaned his elbows on his knees, which were almost up to his chest, he was so big in that short chair. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m so sorry. I can go.” He braced to get up.
“No!” She was able to pull in a deep breath, and finally the tightness in her chest abated. “You didn’t scare me.” She leaned back in her chair, fingering the neck of her bottle as she struggled to get her heart rate back down to normal.
Scared? That was the last thing she was feeling right now. Hello, her new brother-in-law used to be a gigolo. But she couldn’t think about that too hard without her clit turning into an innie. Brother. Sex. Ew.
This huge guy sitting in her gaming chair, though?
No brotherly thoughts here, gorgeous. “A gigolo. Wow. That’s actually . . . ”
His deep brown eyes grew guarded.
“Fascinating,” she finished quickly. “It’s fascinating.”
The guarded look didn’t abate like she’d expected it to. Instead, his eyes narrowed. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Her writing brain smelled a good story. Want to grill the guy. But the way he was looking at her from the corners of his eyes, as though he knew she was holding back a slew of questions and what each and every one of them would be, made her bite her tongue. “You lucky bastard. So, you can sleep with whomever you want and you don’t have to be in a relationship after?”
She hadn’t bitten her tongue quickly enough.
His eyebrows shot up, hiding behind the thick locks of that midnight black hair that fell over his forehead.
Apparently, he hadn’t known what question she’d wanted to ask.
“Because,” she continued forging ahead into the awkward silence, “that sounds like heaven. I still have a hang-on from my last one-night stand, and it wasn’t even a good night.”
Gage cleared his throat and shifted around in his seat, but the guarded look disappeared from his eyes, so at least she was making progress. “Well,” he said, “not every night is good for me either, but, no, I don’t have be-in-a-relationship-with-me problems.”
She sighed. “You lucky bastard,” she said again.
Gage chuckled, and it rippled along her skin, seeming to pause at her nipples in a caress. Oh, hell. How was one guy this sexy?
He tilted his head, and his lips quirked. “Did you not hear the part where sometimes the sex is lousy? Or”—he raised his eyebrows again—“very much not what I’m into?”
That was his sob story? She snorted. “Like that’s different from normal single person sex.”
Gage narrowed his eyes at her. “Really. You’ve had to look someone in the eyes and tell them you love them while you’re wearing fucking cat ears and a painted-on nose and whiskers because she says she’ll pay you extra to do it?”
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.” She nearly dropped her beer bottle.
“But”—Gage tipped his bottle her direction in a mock cheers—“I didn’t have to date her afterward.”
Cassidy was pretty sure her mouth was hanging wide open. She licked dry lips and swallowed hard before attempting to speak. “Well, there’s your silver lining.”
His lips tipped up at the corners; they were incredibly full for a man’s lips. They’d be so soft, even if he kissed her roughly.
She shook her head and attempted to take another sip of beer only to discover the bottle was empty. That’d been fast. She set the empty bottle aside. Her belly was nice and warm. “I should have tried the cat thing with Chris.” Gage raised a brow in question. “My last one-night stand,” she clarified. “He’d have run away then.”
“Ah.” He passed her his still-full beer bottle, which she accepted with a smile. “Live and learn. But he’ll give up quickly if you give it some time. How long ago did you guys sleep together?”
Cassidy set the full beer bottle down next to the empty one—she didn’t need another. As it was, the idea of sleeping with Gage was growing more and more attractive, and she didn’t need the second beer adding genius points to a very bad idea.
Is it? Is it a bad idea?
Cassidy clenched her fists and released them. “A year ago.”
His eyes widened. “As in, 365 days? You haven’t had sex with anyone in a year?”
“Yup.” Cassidy popped her lips on the p, and, swear to God, Gage seemed to notice. His gaze strayed from her eyes to her lips and lingered there for a moment. So, she returned the favor.
God, his lips were big. And beautiful. Like, Gage was pretty in a way that made men ostentatious. His hair was thick and fell to his shoulders. His height—well, she didn’t know how tall doors were, but he’d had to duck to get under hers. Yeah, his height alone could make a certain kind of girl cream her panties, and . . . Wait, was she wet?
Ah, damn, she was.
She shifted in her seat and looked elsewhere, but everything on him was big and beautiful. His big brown eyes, which were surrounded by thick lashes, may as well be out of a Manga novel, for Chrissake. And those lips. God, his chest that seemed to stretch on forever, framed by broad shoulders that filled that leather jacket to perfection. Huge thighs that bulged in his tight, black jeans. And, if foot size was any indication of dick size . . .
“Uh, Cassidy?”
She jerked her gaze back up to his face. “I wasn’t thinking about your dick.” She closed her eyes but not before she’d seen his flash. “Shit.”
Silence pervaded her apartment and grew oppressive.
Finally, Gage cleared his throat. “Hey, it’s okay. I was kinda thinking about my dick, too.”
Her eyes opened at that. And, of course, her gaze shot straight to the spot between his spread knees. Oh, holy . . . A very obvious erection started behind his fly and then continued down his left pant leg. For several hard, hard inches. It pushed against his inseam so clearly, she was tempted to wince. “Jesus, doesn’t that hurt?”
He released an audible breath. “More, the longer you stare at it.”
She waved a hand. “Yeah, I’m not looking away anytime soon, man. Sorry.” Her celibate year suddenly felt like a celibate decade. She pressed her knees together, visions of him shoving that massive erection into her making her swollen and sensitive between her legs.
He made a soft, odd noise. She dragged her gaze away from his dick to find the look in his eyes had shifted. They were so dark now they looked black. And as he stared at her, she couldn’t help feeling like he was . . . hungry.
No, not hungry. Gage was horny. For her, it seemed.
Well, that’s new. She didn’t exactly have people lined up to sleep with her. She looked down at her ripped jeans, Converse, and T-shirt. She didn’t wear makeup; her hair was always styled however it’d dried after her shower. She had freckles everywhere. And on the rare occasion she did sleep with someone, it was always a friend, and then the friendship got awkward because the expectation when a friend slept with a friend was a relationship. Apparently.
Nothing in Gage’s eyes right now said friend, however.
He made the same noise again—a soft groan, she realized—and she looked at his cock once more.
“Cassidy, I should go.”
She shook her head. “I really think you shouldn’t go.”
He shifted in his seat, and her gaze followed the movement raptly. “If I don’t leave right now, I’m going to fuck you.”
Without skipping a beat, she said, “Okay.”
Wait, what?
“Wait, what?” he asked.
She looked at his face again. That hunger had tripled. God only knew what her face looked like. She’d gone a year without, and he was someone who regularly had sex, yet he was looking at her like this. Why would he be that hard up? Wait a second. She straightened. “When’s the last time you had sex for fun, Gage?”
The question seemed to stump him. Or horrify him. His wide eyes and parted lips could mean either. He was quiet for several seconds before he said, “I can’t remember.”
Well, that wasn’t a good sign. “A year?”
He swallowed hard enough for her to see his throat bob. “Longer.”
Oh, God. Why did that turn her on more? “I think that’s a crying shame.”
He licked his lips, and it was her turn to make a soft, odd noise. “I think your year of no sex is a crying shame.”
“Hmmm.” Methinks I’m getting an idea. She leaned toward him. Most important question first. “Do you want a relationship? Anything longer than a one-night stand?”
Gage hesitated.
She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me honestly.”
He shook his head. “Not even a little.”
Her chest lightened. She leaned back, the beginnings of a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “God, me neither.” She tilted her head. “You safe in your . . . job?”
Now, he narrowed his eyes, as though he were trying to figure out if she were really going where she seemed to be going with this line of questions. “Yes.” He drew the word out for several extra syllables. “And screenings every month. Latest one this week. I’m clean.” He tilted his head in a playful approximation of her move. “You safe in your . . . one-night stands?”
“Of course.” Her heartbeat was starting to pick up. “I have condoms.”
He licked his lips. “I have something to put in them.”
Oh, she definitely knew. This was just perfect! She only hoped her condoms were big enough, because—
“Gage, I think we should fuck.”