LITMIR.BIZ

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want idle promises of seeing him again. If she agreed. And she would. Why not let a man like Jude introduce her to what all the sex hype was about? Sexual Orgasm for Beginners?

      Ha! She’d bet anything he’d move straight into an advanced course. Maybe Advanced Multiple Wows, or something along those lines.

      “Would you give me the privilege of taking you to your first Broadway show on Friday evening?”

      Their minds clearly on two different subjects, Sarah’s head spun and she frowned at him in bewilderment. “Why would you want to do that?”

      Why was he talking about Friday evening when they were in the here and now and his bedroom was only a few feet away?

      “I’d like to take you to watch Phantom of the Opera.”

      “What? Why?”

      “I’d like to fulfill that desire of yours.”

      Which was where her brain had been, not on watching a play. But he meant...he was saying...asking...

      “As a...” she’d been going to say “friend”, but, whatever they were, they weren’t friends “...neighbor?”

      He chuckled. “As someone who’d like to kiss you goodnight again. Soon.”

      “Oh.” She bit her lower lip. Part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and say yes, and to please just go ahead and kiss her again right now, like she’d thought he was going to do. Would that be soon enough? But she wasn’t a throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of girl. She was a logical girl who avoided men like him because they used women. She knew he used women. She saw the parade of usees leaving his apartment the morning after.

      She was not a usee. She’d been thinking about becoming one, had even been thinking of using him to give her the pleasure wielded at his fingertips, which would make her a user, too. What she hadn’t been thinking of was going on a date with Jude Davenport.

      That terrified her much more than the thought of having sex with him.

      Sex was nothing to Jude. Maybe dates weren’t either. But to her, at that moment, dragging him into his bedroom and stripping him naked felt safer than agreeing to a date.

      No.

      She would not set herself up for that particular disappointment again.

      “I can tell you are way over-thinking this,” he pointed out, lifting her chin to where she was looking into his eyes again. “It’s just a date, Sarah.”

      Just a date. She hadn’t misread what he’d been offering. Jude wanted to take her on a date. A real date.

      “I’m not your type,” she reminded him, positive that agreeing to go with him would be a bad idea, that to do so would be setting herself up for disappointment the way Kenny had never come close to.

      What if she grew emotionally attached?

      No, she knew better than to do that with a man like Jude. If they went out, it would be because he was tired tonight, but was interested in pursuing the sexual chemistry between them at a later time. On Friday night. Taking her to watch a Broadway show was no big deal to Jude, merely a form of foreplay.

      She needed to be careful not to make his offer into more than what it was.

      “And I’m not your type,” he countered her response, his eyes full of delicious promise. “So how about you say you’ll go to dinner and to see Phantom of the Opera with me? We will have a good time. I’ll be on my best behavior and give you a night you’ll never forget. I give my word.”

      The man could sell sand in the middle of the desert.

      “And then what?” she ventured, trying to play out in her mind what would happen after their “date”. “You expect me to sleep with you and then me to sneak out of your apartment the next morning?”

      His expression didn’t waver. “I would never ask you to sneak out of my apartment, Sarah.”

      Right. He’d just kiss her goodbye, while standing in his doorway with only a towel covering his lean hips, while she craved more of whatever he’d done the night before.

      If she wasn’t careful, she’d be the one with no pride, offering to do whatever he wanted for just a little bit more of his delicious body.

      She had to put a stop to this. Her sexual need had ebbed a little and she felt stronger, more able to walk away, and that’s exactly what she was going to do.

      She went to turn from him, but he stopped her.

      “I like you, Sarah,” he told her, his voice clear, sincere, imploring. “I’ve enjoyed tonight more than I’ve enjoyed talking with a woman in a long time. Stop judging me on what you think you know. Pretend you met me for the first time at the hospital today and listen to what your heart is saying right now.”

      If she’d met him at the hospital and not had preconceived ideas she might think he was wonderful and not at all like the men her mother had warned her about.

      “My heart isn’t saying anything right now.” Okay, so it was beating fast, and a little erratically, but that wasn’t speech.

      He put his palm over her heart, as if interpreting an unspoken language.

      Beating a lot erratically, she corrected, wondering why his hand on her chest made breathing so difficult.

      “Maybe you just aren’t listening closely enough, because I think it is.”

      “Don’t use lines on me, Jude Davenport,” she warned, reminding herself not to get caught up in what he was saying. The man was a practiced womanizer. “I’m not one of your women.”

      Looking frustrated, he sighed. “How about we go to dinner and the show Friday evening and then just have some fun between now and Christmas? You get to decide how much, or how little, happens between us physically.”

      No doubt shock registered in her eyes because his question floored her. That a lot would happen between them physically wasn’t in question. If she spent time with him, she would end up in his bed. She didn’t fool herself otherwise. She didn’t even deny to herself that a big part of her wanted to be in his bed, to know what it felt like to have him give her body pleasure.

      “Christmas?” she finally croaked. “Christmas is weeks away. Wouldn’t Thanksgiving make more sense?”

      Which almost sounded as if she was considering his outrageous suggestion. She wasn’t, was she?

      He shrugged. “Why not Christmas? Thanksgiving is only a few weeks from now. We’ve already admitted that we’re dreading the holidays. Why not spend them together so maybe they won’t be so bad?”

      Sarah mentally shook her head. Jude was asking her to date him through Christmas?

      Had she passed out in her kitchen from smoke fumes and only dreamed he’d come to rescue her?

      That made more sense.

      Reality was that she was unconscious, suffering from smoke intoxication, and having one heck of a hallucination.

      Either that, or Jude must have enjoyed their kiss.

      She had enjoyed their kiss.

      Had truly never been kissed that way, had never felt so much passion bubbling within her.

      Yep, she must be hallucinating.

      She bit the inside of her lip. Ouch. The pain was real. Which meant this was real. That Jude was searching her eyes, looking for an answer.

      The truth was that she wanted to know him better, too.

      If she said no, she’d only be denying herself. But there was that thing she didn’t really want to think about. Before she could consider agreeing to any of this, she had to address it or else it would be a constant thorn.

      “What about the other women?”

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