that were designed for aesthetics rather than function. Every good intention, every idea that I should be the good guy and do the right thing, went out the window.
She was all ice-cool hair, perfect pale skin, tiny little waist and high “touch me, please God, touch me” breasts. She had a body made to make men stupid and I wasn’t immune. I took a fumbling step toward her after kicking the door closed behind me.
Somewhere my conscience was whispering I should just put her to bed and go find a giant bottle of Crown to crawl into and a cold shower to get my libido back in check, but none of that was going to happen because she met me halfway and her little hands went right to my belt buckle.
“Shaw,” I tried again. I put my hands on her shoulders and where I thought I was going to push her away, my body betrayed me, and I ended up pushing the straps of that fancy bra off her shoulders. She pressed close to me, her hands making short work of the belt and the zipper on my pants. Her lips fluttered over the pulse pounding rapidly at my throat. Her hands trailed lightly over my chest and across my abs, which were tense with desire. One of her legs slid between mine and rubbed against the evidence that I wasn’t going to stop her regardless of knowing it was the right thing to do.
“Stop thinking so hard.” Her voice was all husky and cloudy with desire. She was the last person on earth I should be contemplating doing this with, but even as objections broke through my haze of lust I used one hand to unhook her bra and the other to tangle in her hair as I sealed my mouth over hers.
Kissing Shaw was a different experience from kissing any other girl. For one, she was really good at it. Most girls got lost or a little confused because of the lip ring and the metal barbell in the center of my tongue, but Shaw seemed oblivious to both of them and kissed me like she had been born to do it. She was also a lot shorter than most of the girls I normally hooked up with so there was an entire learning curve involved and I had to figure out a way to get all the best parts of us lined up. She didn’t seem to care at all that I was a little rough, that I was suddenly impatient. I felt like if I gave myself too much time to get my head around what I was doing I would falter and stop. And man, I really, really didn’t want to stop, because her hands had found their way into my pants and my dick would kill me if I pulled the plug now.
She tugged the denim down over my ass and I pulled her up so that we were pressed together chest to chest. I shrugged the pants the rest of the way off and gave her a little push so that she fell back onto my rumpled bed. It took some maneuvering and a few curse words to get my boots off and when I went to crawl up onto the bed my brain short-circuited because all she had on were the barely-there lace panties and a dreamy look on her face. A lot of girls had been in this bed; in fact, last weekend had been the first time in a long time I had spent the night alone. Even though I was in a haze of testicle-squeezing desire I knew that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, none of them had ever looked like Shaw looked against the dark sheets and comforter. She slid an appreciative eye over my naked form, not like she hadn’t seen it before, but somehow now that I was sprawled out on top of her, the look was more “do me” and less “Rule, you’re gross.”
Her hand brushed over the tattoo of the sacred heart on the center of my chest and up along the two giant rib pieces that covered most of my torso. I had a lot of color and a lot of artwork decorating my skin and when I was naked it tended to be a lot to take in and had been overwhelming to some of my less adventurous bed partners. I mean, I’m not vain or conceited but I know I’m all right to look at. I’m tall and tend toward lean and fit and I go to the gym a few times a week, but none of that really mattered because she was looking at me like I was everything she’d ever wanted and it was doing weird things to my head. I also had a barbell pierced through the head of my penis, which meant I was both brave and idiotic, because half the chicks who saw it had no clue what to do with it. Shaw had walked in on me enough times to know that it was there, but she didn’t seem to care either way. She let the pad of her thumb brush across the top ball of it, which made me suck in a breath.
I realized I was letting this girl call all the shots. I was about to have sex with her and we had barely said a word; she was touching me, making me go crazy and I was just letting her. I needed to get with the program, so I hooked my fingers in her tiny little underwear and pulled them down her legs. She shivered in response and now that she was finally fully naked and trapped under me there was a hint of trepidation in her mossy gaze.
“You’re beautiful.” I had said it to many others before her, but I think this was the first time I meant it.
She put her hands on either side of my head and I realized my new hairdo wasn’t exactly an easy one to work with where sex was involved. There was nothing up there for her to hold on to, nothing up there for her to run her fingers through—it was all spiked up and manhandled into intimidating spikes—not that she seemed to care. She scraped her fingernails across my scalp and gave me a lopsided grin. I couldn’t tell if the booze was wearing off or she was finally starting to realize we were naked in bed and about to cross a definite boundary, but a hint of the Shaw I was used to dealing with was starting to surface.
“So are you. You shouldn’t be, but you always have been. I remember the first time I saw you I couldn’t believe you were Remy’s twin. He was so handsome, always so put together, but you … God, Rule, you are and were just perfect.”
The fact that she brought Remy’s name up while her hand was wrapped around my dick should have been like ice water on the moment. It wasn’t. I kissed her below her ear and let my teeth nick her neck and she made a noise that did something to the center of my chest. She hooked a leg up over my hip so that all her heat was pressed up against my hardness. I blinked for a second because I felt like I was forgetting something. She was wrapping her arms around my shoulders and panting as I brushed kisses across her puckered nipples. Just as I was about to let her pull me in, a shiver of apprehension slammed across my spine and I pushed off her. “Condom.” I’d been having sex since I was fourteen years old and it didn’t matter who the girl was or how drunk I was—I never forgot. The fact that my head was spun around by her and I was so lost in what we were doing that I almost put both of us at risk scared the shit out of me.
“I have one in my purse.”
I looked at her and blinked. “I have a box in the nightstand, Shaw. Come on, do you really want to do this? Think about it. You’re wasted. You’re probably going to regret it in the morning.”
She sat up and her cool two-toned hair fell forward to cover the top of her swollen breasts. She looked like every naughty dream I had ever had of her and I couldn’t believe I was trying to talk her out of doing this with me. Her eyes suddenly got glassy and I knew she was going to cry. She went to crawl past me off the bed but I trapped her in my arms and rolled her so that we were once again lined up.
“Don’t cry.”
“You never wanted me.”
I was stunned I just let my mouth fall open. “Uh … I’m pretty sure you can feel the proof that that’s not true. In fact, you just had your hot little hands all over it.”
She shook her head and her silky blond hair rubbed across my chest. “That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?” She wiggled a little against me and reached an arm up for my nightstand drawer. If it had been anyone else I would have freaked out, but this was Shaw. Anything that was in that drawer wouldn’t surprise her or freak her out; including the loaded gun I kept in there. I heard the cellophane wrapper and felt her hands back below my waist. I wasn’t sure I remembered ever having a condom put on me or it ever feeling so good.
“Rule, it’s my birthday and my life is a freaking mess most of the time. Can you just for once do something nice for me, please?”
What red-blooded American male would turn down a dead-sexy, naked blonde who asked him to please do it to her? Not me, no way, no how, so I kissed her again, let my tongue slide against hers and lifted her leg up over my hip. I liked to think I knew what I was doing in this department—after all I had more practice than I cared to admit—but for some reason with her I felt like what I was doing was all new. She kissed me back and gasped softly as I started