Rush sucked on my bottom lip hard before suddenly ripping himself away. He looked pained as he panted. “We need to talk.”Gia looked like I’d pissed in her Cheerios after I stopped the kiss.
Pulling away from that was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. But we needed to have this discussion. Not to mention, I wasn’t going to fuck her in my office. It was heading dangerously close to that scenario. A few more seconds of that kiss, and I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to stop.
She was gasping for air. “What do you need to say?”
My dick was still hard as a rock as I said, “If you had stopped talking for two seconds earlier, you’d realize that you were wrong about what you thought I was going to tell you tonight.”
Deep breath.
I continued, “I don’t want to just fuck…” I corrected my language, because what I had to say was important. “Don’t want to just…sleep with you.” Letting out a breath, I pushed the rest of the words out, “I think we should…see where things go.”
Her jaw dropped. “What are you getting at?”
“Earlier when you walked into my office all made up, looking like freaking Betty Boop, I was in the middle of thinking about this thing with us, trying to figure out my feelings. But there wasn’t anything to figure out except that I’ve been in denial. I can’t promise you anything, Gia. I can’t promise that I’m not gonna fuck this up royally. But…I wanna try.”
Her eyes widened in genuine surprise. “You want more than just a casual fuck with me?”
I nodded. “Yeah.” Moving in, I wrapped my hands around her cheeks and rubbed some of the remaining lipstick away from her mouth. “And you don’t need all that shit on your face. You’re so fucking beautiful without it. Next time you do that, I’m gonna kiss it all off of you.”
“Is that a challenge?” A blush crept up her face. “So…what we do now? Where do we go from here?”
The concept of dating was so foreign to me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a woman out on a formal date. The slower I took things with Gia, the less chance I had of screwing things up. That meant avoiding being alone with her for a while.
“You’re off tomorrow night, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll come get you.”
She smirked. “You’re taking me out on a date?”
My heart started to palpitate at the thought. “Look…I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to dating. I haven’t been on an actual date in a very long time. But yeah, I’ll pick you up. Take you out.”
“Pick me up. Take me out. That’s sounds a lot like a date to me,” she teased.
I rolled my eyes, then smiled in concession. “Alright, damn it. It’s a date.”What’s wrong with me tonight?
Indecisive as hell, I took off the third shirt I’d put on in five minutes and threw it in the corner of my bedroom. You’d think I’d never taken a woman out before.
I wasn’t used to dressing up, either, finally settling on a charcoal collared shirt and dark jeans.
The reality was, the right shirt wasn’t going to protect me from my own self-destructive behavior tonight. I knew damn well I had no control over my physical reaction to Gia. Yes, I wanted to get to know her even better. Yes, I wanted to hang out with her. But I wanted to fuck her more than my next breath, and I worried that the minute we started touching again tonight, that need would trump all. I was gonna lose it. I just knew it.
I’d made a reservation for us at a posh seafood restaurant about a half-hour away. I figured the longer the drive, the better. That was more time in the car where I couldn’t get myself into trouble on the very first night of “dating.”
The sun was just starting to set as I pulled up to the beach house.
After I rang the doorbell, I wiped the sweat off my forehead as I waited for her to answer. The fact that she still didn’t know I owned her damn place made me chuckle to myself.
Gia opened, looking good enough to eat right there on the spot, and that only confirmed how fucked I was. She was wearing a low-cut yellow dress that was long and flowy. Even though it was sexy, it didn’t come across as slutty. She wore her hair down in waves. This sparkly headband sat atop her head and across her forehead. It reminded me of something Cleopatra would have worn. Gia was naturally exotic and beautiful, so I was glad she’d listened to me and kept the makeup to a minimum. She didn’t need it.
“You look nice.” I smiled.