Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,42
plump thighs and a softly curving tummy in the throes of passion. When his tongue swirled along her cleft or his fingers danced across her skin, he’d been too busy to notice her shortcomings. But now, she felt decidedly awkward.
He’d called her sexy.
Seriously sexy.
But what guy wouldn’t say something like that during foreplay? He’d wanted her but his compliments, while flattering, didn’t mean anything in the larger scheme of things. She’d do well to remember that, no matter how good he was in bed.
Brandon shifted, leaning up on his elbow, and looked at her steadily. “A glass of water would be great. The bathroom’s just down the hall, on your left.”
She ran the taps until the water streamed out icy cold. She drank in thick, greedy gulps then leaned against the sink, pressing the glass against her cheeks and forehead.
Saturday night at the club had been incredible. Urgent. Passionate. Illicit and compelling. Her body carried with it the overwhelming sense of sexual satisfaction for days afterward. She’d dismissed the chances of ever recreating such explosive sexual chemistry. Nothing, she’d told herself, could surpass it.
She had been wrong.
Tonight had been so far outside her realm of experience that even now, as she rested against the vanity, her knees still shook.
It terrified her.
What had she gotten herself involved in?
This could only be a fling. A casual hookup with no expectations on either side. Leanne’s whole life right now was focused on the Walters Prize. There was no room for anything else. She couldn’t let transitory needs derail her life. She’d worked too hard to let sexual prowess be the determining factor in whether or not she reached all of her goals.
She had to believe that Brandon felt the same way. He hadn’t come out and said it, of course, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out that he wasn’t interested in entanglements either. Her earlier impression of him as a loner had been reinforced during dinner. He’d been witty and charming yet he was unmistakably a solitary person whose reserve ran deep. He talked of colleagues, not close friends. He spoke of travel but not family. He’d asked questions of both Leanne and her father but deflected all but the most generic they’d asked in return. For all his good looks, he seemed to prefer keeping his real self well hidden.
His life was conducted backstage, she thought. When he moved into the glare of the footlights, he left something of himself behind, protected, the face he showed the world a carefully crafted performance. Brandon seemed to prefer that people would look no further than the surface. He almost seemed to expect it. What had happened to bring him to that point, she couldn’t guess, but the fact that he preferred his independence to a romantic relationship was all that was keeping her swirling anxieties in check.
Yet in bed he’d shown an almost uncanny ability to gauge her needs, to anticipate her deepest desires before she could even articulate them. He’d been tender and inventive and so unbelievably good that even now, just thinking about what they’d done made her sex contract and a warm trickle of need trail down her tender inner thighs.
He was the best damn lover she’d ever had.
Even knowing what they had was fleeting, her only regret was that he’d raised the bar for all future lovers. She’d never be satisfied with mediocre sex again, thanks to his touch, and she felt a shiver of sadness with the realization that—if her past lovers were any indication—most of the men she might sleep with in the future would fall far short of Brandon’s mark.
Filling the glass again, she turned off the light and made her way back to the bedroom, her way illuminated by the dim hall light.
He was awake. Even in the dark, she could sense his alertness. Making her way carefully around the bed, she held out the glass.
“Here.”
His fingers brushed against hers as he took the glass and need pierced her, despite the brief contact. She wanted to crawl under his duvet and fall asleep but if she did, he’d think she didn’t know the rules governing a hookup like theirs.
No cuddling.
No overnights.
No future plans.
Leanne might have embarked on her journey of sexual self-discovery a little later than some, but even she, well and truly buried in the eighteenth century, knew what was expected of her in this situation. She slid one foot out, across the floor, her toes brushing against a crumpled heap that felt,