Victoria Dahl - Bad Boys Do

“Olivia?” Victor’s voice sang with irritation.

“Yes?”

“Who was that guy?”

Well, the curiosity must have been eating him alive if he’d just blurted it out like that. Victor normally liked to weave in and out of difficult topics until she was too confused to remember her point. Olivia smiled. “What guy?”

“Damn it. If you want to play games—”

“Victor,” she interrupted. “I’m not playing any games. My life has nothing to do with you now. Everything’s final. It’s done. Utterly and completely over.”

“That’s not true. We’re still friends.”

“We most certainly are not! Where do you get this stuff?”

“O, just listen—”

“No. I have to go. We’ll talk another time. Or not. It really doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”

For the first time in months, she wasn’t the least bit stressed after a phone call with Victor. She simply, honestly, didn’t care. She had other things to worry about. Bigger things, hopefully.

Jamie had invited her to his place for brunch. Brunch, the most innocent-sounding of all the meals, but surely this brunch was just code for sex. They could just as easily go out to brunch, after all, but she was going to his place, alone, for an intimate meal.

She was terrified, yet one hundred percent ready. At least in theory.

Something had changed for her in the past few days. Dating Jamie was still dangerous and irresponsible and it would never lead anywhere. But screw it. She’d only been divorced for a year. Now was not the time for a long-term relationship. Now was the time for a sizzling-hot affair with a younger man who made her toes curl with the just the sound of his voice.

She’d been up for hours already, thinking about it. With Jamie’s job, he wasn’t exactly a morning person. He’d invited her over at noon, explaining that it would have to be brunch because breakfast was the only meal he could cook well. She’d occupied herself with running and showering and drying her hair. But now she was faced with the impossible task of picking an outfit. Standing in her closet, she stared helplessly at her clothes.

She would know what to wear if they were going out. A cute sleeveless dress, no question about it. But what if he lived in a dorm-style dump? What if he had a roommate?

Brunch sounded a little elegant, but was it possible that he considered breakfast foods to be nothing more than Toaster Strudels and Slim Jims? She imagined herself sitting at a tiny table in a dress, eating powdered donuts out of a box.

“No,” she scolded herself. He was twenty-nine, not nineteen. He had a real apartment with a real table and maybe even a stove he knew how to use. So she picked out a pretty yellow dress and laid it out on the bed, then turned to her dresser to face the more difficult task of choosing undergarments.

Boy, she was regretting that generously padded bra now. False advertising and potential daylight nudity did not mix. She looked down at the towel that lay flat against her chest, then back to the drawer full of pretty, delicate, unnecessary bras. Then Olivia sat down hard on her bed and faced a problem she’d been ignoring. A problem she’d tried hard to forget.

She wasn’t just inexperienced at irresponsible fun. She was inexperienced, period.

Victor was the only lover she’d ever had. Ever. If she slept with Jamie, he’d be her second. Not that she would ever, ever let him know.

She was, after all, a modern, educated woman. A divorced thirty-five-year-old with no moral objections to a healthy love life. As a young woman, she hadn’t been specifically saving herself for love or marriage or a soul mate. She’d just been a skinny girl in glasses who was too shy to willingly look beyond her books. And like so many quiet girls before her, she’d been struck with an awful crush on the smart teacher who’d tried to draw her out. He’d seemed so interested. In her , of all things. She hadn’t stood a chance.

That was all well and good. She’d been inexperienced. Victor had liked that. But being inexperienced with Jamie was a whole different issue. She’d just have to fake it. Which shouldn’t be too hard, really. She’d been having sex for over a decade now. One man couldn’t be so radically different from another. Same parts. Same process. And she had the same body. Which was her current worry.

When she’d asked, Victor had said he didn’t mind her small breasts. He didn’t mind them. But it had been impossible to miss the way he’d looked at other women’s cleavage. And of the three women she knew about, all of them had been fairly impressive in the size department.

But she was silly to worry. They were just breasts. Only one small part of what Jamie was interested in, hopefully. As for the other … she might be inexperienced, but he’d never know. She’d fake her way through it.

As pep talks went, it was lacking in enthusiasm, but Olivia had always been a logical kind of girl. She felt better as she made herself pick out her favorite bra. It was pretty lilac cotton edged in white lace. She pulled on matching underwear and tied on the bright yellow wrap dress, then put in her contacts and did her makeup.

The clock told her she had half an hour left, and she wasn’t sure what to do with herself, so Olivia simply sat on the couch with her hands folded in her lap. If she wanted to, she could just go to Jamie’s house and share a meal. She knew that. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to have him. She wanted to feel him on her and in her. So, scary as it was, she wouldn’t back down. Someone had to be the first after Victor, and it was going to be Jamie.

After thirty quiet, calm minutes, Olivia stood, put on her heeled sandals and left for Jamie’s place. She’d approach fun the way she approached everything: with logic and calm.

Logic, calm and a crazed, thundering heart. It seemed that fun wasn’t easy to trick, because by the time she reached Jamie’s place, she couldn’t hear anything past her rushing pulse.

She vaguely noticed that he lived in a beautiful neighborhood of large houses, and his place was no exception. The porch was split into two entrances, and she walked up to the left one and knocked. When she started getting dizzy, she made herself breathe, even when she saw a figure approach behind the frosted glass.

“Ms. Bishop,” he said, a smile spreading across his face like a warm, melting treat. “Thanks for coming.”

Hopefully he’d be repeating that same phrase later.

She fought back a nervous laugh as he opened the door wider and motioned her to step inside. She started to walk past him, then stuttered when he moved to kiss her. At the exact moment she realized he’d meant to kiss her cheek, she turned in to kiss his lips. It was too late then. Their mouths bumped awkwardly before she stepped away.

Damn it .

The door clicked closed.

“It smells good in here!” she said brightly.

“Thank you.”

“And …” She finally registered her surroundings and turned in a slow, awed circle. “It’s so pretty!” This was no dingy apartment. It wasn’t even a man cave. The tall windows were open to the breeze, letting sunlight fall across wood floors. The baseboards and doors were warm, polished wood against almond-colored walls. “How long have you lived here?”

“About eighteen months.” He led her toward the back, to a small kitchen done in dark granite and stainless steel.

“Beautiful. I didn’t expect this.”

“Oh, yeah?” he opened the oven and pulled out a pan. “What did you expect?”

She cleared her throat and didn’t answer.

“Neon beer signs? Posters taped to the walls?”

“No. I—”

“I save those for my bedroom. Then I know I’ll start the day off right.”