Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,43

if the soft touch of velvet was anything to go by, like her skirt. She was so intent on her recovery mission that his low voice startled her and she jumped a little.

“Come to bed.”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Come to bed. It’s late.”

“Are you sure?” Leanne was bewildered by this turn of events. He smoothed back the duvet. On autopilot, she slid under the covers. Gingerly, she laid her head against the pillow and turned toward him.

He shifted and pulled her against him, his muscled chest pressing against her back, his now flaccid cock nestled firmly between the cheeks of her ass. She felt warm and sated and unbelievably safe.

She knew she shouldn’t feel anything of those things. She tried to skooch away, to begin the hunt for her clothes in earnest, but he only tightened his grip, squeezing her in his arms.

“I shouldn’t stay,” she said. “This is against the rules.”

“The rules?” She could feel, rather than hear, his laughter at her statement. She was tempted to simply leave the bedroom instead of succumbing to his teasing. She shifted, trying to push herself up from the mattress and his grip intensified. “What rules are those?”

“You know,” she insisted. “For what we’re doing.”

“Ah, you mean the rules for a one-night stand.” His voice deepened, the masculine rumble permeating her entire body and making rational thought a difficult proposition.

She was perilously close to the edge, hanging on to her sanity by the barest of threads. If she stayed, the risks were simply too great.

He knew that.

She knew that he knew that.

So why was he asking her to stay with him tonight?

Where was that damn lone wolf when she needed him? Didn’t he understand she was giving them both the out they needed?

As if she’d uttered the words aloud, he spoke. “Because you smell good.” He said it so matter-of-factly, as if his cryptic statement would answer all her questions. It didn’t. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled. “Like lemons. And vanilla.”

He thought she smelled good? She knew she ought to rebel against his invitation but she couldn’t resist. The warmth of his body, the softness of the bed, it all conspired against her.

“Just for tonight,” she murmured. “But this doesn’t change…It’s still a…”

Fling. She didn’t finish what she was saying; Brandon interrupted first.

“Still a lot of fun,” he whispered. A tiny thrill zipped through her at his admission.

He thought what they had was fun?

She was studious. Intellectual. Determined. But she couldn’t remember anyone who’d ever thought she was fun.

She grinned. Pretending to search for a more comfortable position, she wriggled against him, enjoying the way his breath caught as her ass brushed against his cock in a not so accidental way. No longer flaccid, it pressed insistently into her flesh. He wanted her again. Because, miracle of miracles, he thought she was fun.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” She feigned innocence.

He laughed, his hand stroking across her hip before dipping down toward her damp curls. His finger brushed against her outer lips before dancing away to touch her inner thighs, spreading liquid heat across her core. He pressed against her clit and she jerked. After the orgasm she’d just experienced, she should be beyond arousal, spent, yet at the lightest of touches, she was ready to begin again. He moved closer now and she could feel his cock even more clearly now, not fully engorged but unmistakably stiffer than it had been.

“I don’t do fun very often,” he confessed. Leanne was surprised. He seemed so easygoing, so unencumbered by worry or self-doubt. She twisted around to face him. It was intimate here in the darkness, only his silhouette visible.

“Really?”

He sighed, his exhalation warm against her temple. Somehow the dark made it easier for her to ask such bold questions. Normally, she wouldn’t quiz someone like this but it had suddenly become important that she know what he really thought of her.

“Yeah.”

She waited, sensing there was more to it than a simple one-word answer, and after a long pause, he continued. “I’ve been on my own for…well, for a long time now. Since I was a kid. And between school and work and research and dancing, there just wasn’t a lot of time left over for anything else.”

In the silence that followed his explanation, Leanne wrestled with the questions crowding her mind. If she asked them, they’d cross a line in the sand, moving from casual to something else entirely. A friendship? A relationship?

Whatever it was, she knew it was