Liv looked for her cab, but it was nowhere to be seen. Cars rushed by down a busy Clark Street. It had rained while she’d been at the party and the streetlights beamed up at her from the wet sidewalks. Out in the cool September air she came to her senses again. Porter might be enticing, but he wasn’t worth the risk. Not with her parents involved. She felt a stone in her stomach when she thought about having to explain her work.
“Olivia...”
“Call me Liv. Only my...only my parents call me Olivia.” Her lips still felt warm from his kiss. She rubbed them with her finger, wishing she didn’t feel like kissing him right there on the street, again.
“Okay, Liv.” Porter cocked his head as he held her bag. She noticed he didn’t shiver in the cold, even though he’d left his sweatshirt upstairs. Clearly, his hotness wasn’t just cosmetic, but seemed to radiate out from his muscles. “I won’t tell him, you know.”
Liv turned her attention from the cars on the street. “You won’t?” she asked, hopeful.
“I won’t. Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers.
“You were a Boy Scout?” Liv scoffed, not believing him.
“Nope. Sure wasn’t.” He shrugged. Liv couldn’t help herself and laughed. “But I respect the institution. I won’t tell.”
“Good. He’d have a heart attack. And don’t get me started on Mom. She’d probably force me to join a convent.”
“They can’t be that bad. You’re...liberal.” He grinned.
Liv laughed, her breath visible in the sudden chill of the night. “I’m the liberal black sheep of the family, trust me. Sometimes, I think I was switched at birth.” Then again, given her very thin sexual history, she thought, she wasn’t quite so sure she was the black sheep. She thought of her meager two lovers, wondering if maybe her parents had rubbed off on her more than she thought.
“I won’t tell, but you have to do me a favor.” He ran a finger down the side of her arm.
“What?”
“You know what.” His eyes told her she was planning no games.
Liv’s heart kicked up a few notches. “The party? You’re serious.”
“I’m always serious about sex.” Porter’s brown eyes flashed with mischief.
Something about the way he looked made all her words dry up and shrivel in her throat. He stared at her as if he could already see her naked, and liked what he saw.
“Why don’t we have a party right now?”
“What? But Paul...”
“Paul has a lot of his other friends to keep him company.” Porter reached out and ran a finger through the belt loop of her raincoat. He tugged her closer. “I know you want to, Liv,” he whispered, his breath warm on her ear, and she felt her cheeks flush as she remembered him touching her in the elevator. Yes, he did know just how much she wanted to go.
“Porter...” Liv hesitated. Her body screamed yes, but her common sense said she’d be a fool to do it. She was in enough trouble without sleeping with him on top of it. And she was positive that if she let him into her cab right now and took him back to Wicker Park, she probably wouldn’t even make it to her bedroom before her panties were off. She’d just be digging herself in deeper. She needed to focus on damage control, not on white-hot sex with her father’s employee. “Won’t that be bad for you at work?” Liv couldn’t imagine it would be a very good career move.
“I know it’s a bad idea,” Porter said, stepping closer. “But, Liv...looking at you...” His eyes flicked downward. “I just can’t seem to help myself.”
“Looks like I’ll have to save you from yourself then,” Liv said, as a yellow cab pulled up by the curb. Porter leaned over, opening the door and putting her bag in. As she stood there, he pulled her close, so she could feel his warm hands through the raincoat on the small of her back.
“I promise I’ll be a gentleman,” he whispered, almost a growl.
“You mean, like how you were a Boy Scout?” Liv murmured, eyes on his full bottom lip. His brown eyes sparkled.
Porter laughed a little. “You’re too smart for me, Liv.”
“Used to seducing only the simpleminded, huh? Not much of a challenge, then.” She sent him her patented not this time smile, which she’d perfected in bars across Wrigleyville.
A low grumble of a laugh escaped Porter’s throat as Liv ducked into the cab.
“You could make me up my game,” Porter said, dipping into the cab door. “Want to let me try?”
Liv laughed. “You call this game?” She gave him her best flirty half smile, unable to help herself. “You’re going to have to work harder than that.”
Porter laughed. “Fair enough,” he said as he leaned in the open door. “Okay, then a party next Friday. Seven. My place. Be there or...”
Liv felt nerves tingle on the backs of her legs. “Or what?” She held her breath, imagining Porter going back on his word and marching into her father’s office Monday morning with this little juicy bone of gossip. Fear squeezed her heart. Fear and something else...anticipation. As much as she didn’t want to be found out, she did want to see Porter again. Her whole body screamed to finish what they’d started in the elevator.
Porter grinned, showing off his dimple. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He slammed the car door then and thumped the top of the cab, which hit the gas, sending her back into her seat. She turned around on the black leather in time to see Porter, hands in his pockets, watching her go.
I’m in trouble, she thought as she bit her lower lip. I’m in big, big trouble.
Liv woke Monday morning feeling a deep sense of dread. She’d managed to avoid thinking about Porter for most of Sunday, running from one errand to another, but now she had no distractions. Now all she could do was relive that kiss over and over again. She’d never felt one so...earth-shaking. Was that how it was supposed to be? Was it just because she’d had so few kisses? That single kiss was hotter than most of the sex she’d had in her life.
She felt herself tingle with the memory.
She sighed. If a single kiss was so amazing, what would a sex toy party for one be like, she wondered.
Not that she could allow that to happen.
If she did, he would probably find out—first hand—just how inexperienced she was.
She knew what guys expected from a sex hostess. It was exactly what Kincaid had wanted when she’d let slip that was what she did for a living. When he’d convinced her to come back to his place, he’d been disappointed when she hadn’t pulled all means of entertainment out of her tiny black clutch.
She still remembered how indifferent he looked as he showed her the door afterward, as if he’d been disappointed by her, by the whole experience. A week later, she’d seen him kissing another girl at a neighborhood bar. She shouldn’t have been upset by it, but she was. Since then, she’d become an expert at keeping men at arm’s length.
She worried Porter would be just like him. Hot and heavy until he found out she didn’t know what she was doing. He’d find her out. Just like Kincaid had.
“He wants what?” Liv’s roommate, Jordan, said after Liv had told her everything. Jordan had just finished the early-morning shift as a barista, and she smelled strongly of espresso as she brushed out her ponytail in the bathroom mirror. She checked out her new neck tattoo, a butterfly, before turning back to Liv.