LITMIR.BIZ

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before you even tried it,” he said, reading her like the open book she was.

      “Maybe.” She stirred her drink once more, focusing on the ice cubes there. “And Happy Fun Time didn’t help.”

      “Don’t let him be the poster child for your experience,” Xavier said. “Believe me, he’s the exception not the rule.”

      “So what do you do for a living?” she asked him, blue eyes intent on an answer. She was a seeker, a collector of facts, someone who wouldn’t rest until she got all the information.

      “Work in tech,” he said, and shrugged. He glanced at the melting ice cubes in his glass.

      “Where?”

      “Here and there.” He grinned. It was the truth. He’d worked at other companies before founding Nost. He’d had a lot of practice not revealing details about himself. He’d made that mistake in the past, letting on where he’d worked, and a woman found him through a Google search with only his first name and Nost. She stalked him, showing up at work, at his apartment, asking for a relationship he wasn’t willing to give. He’d been up front with her, but after two nights with him...she’d fallen for him. It had been a whole mess, actually. Now he’d learned to be more careful. He knew exactly what to reveal—and what to keep secret. He had his rules.

      “Tell me more about this article,” he said, deftly changing the subject as he deflected interest away from him. “Am I changing your mind about Nost?”

      She glanced up at him. “Not sure yet,” she said. “I’m Emma, by the way.”

      “X,” he replied, and she laughed a little. He never gave his name anymore. Not after the other woman found him.

      “No, really.”

      “Seriously—that’s what my friends call me.” Because Xavier is too much of a mouthful for most. “But, also, no names, it just makes it simpler. On Nost.”

      “So I should just call you Mr. X?” Emma giggled at the idea. “What are you, a comic book villain?”

      Xavier leaned in closer and got a whiff of her perfume...white flowers? Something light and floral. “That depends. Do you like bad boys?”

      Now Emma just threw her head back and laughed. The sound was all light and air—music to Xavier’s ears. The only thing he loved more than making a woman laugh was making her come.

      “No. Not usually. I’m the strictly nice guy type.”

      “How’s that working out for you?” Xavier sloshed his whiskey around the ice cubes in his glass, still studying her perfect cheekbones, and the lovely tilt of her chin. He wanted to kiss the tiny dimple that lay there.

      She self-consciously played with a strand of her hair, and glanced at him sideways. Her eyes sparkled just a little. She was flirting with him. He was one hundred percent sure.

      “Not that great,” she admitted. “All the nice guys I’ve dated ended up being...not so nice.” She frowned, her full, pink lips falling into a pout that could drive most men wild. “My last boyfriend decided a promotion was more important than me. He took the job across the country without even talking to me about it first.”

      “Maybe you should just start with a bad boy and then you know what you’re getting.” Xavier flashed a grin and Emma laughed.

      “Maybe,” she conceded. “Why are you on Nost?”

      Her eyes probed him for an answer. This was the journalist at work, he realized. He liked the fire in her, the curious intelligence in her blue gaze. She wasn’t like the other women he’d met recently. This one thrived on information. Keeping it from her would be a challenge, but one he’d happily accept.

      “I love women,” he said. “Sex for me isn’t about me, it’s about them. I can’t be satisfied...unless they are. There’s nothing more beautiful...or more humbling than giving a woman pleasure.” To him, this was absolute truth. Nothing satisfied him more than seeing a woman, head back, mouth open, lost in ecstasy. Knowing that he brought her there.

      Emma shifted uncomfortably in her seat and rattled her drink. “But don’t you want...more? Don’t you want love and...a real relationship and all of it?”

      “I used to want that. I had that,” he said, feeling a wave of sadness that was stronger than he expected. “I was engaged last year. But...” He thought of Sasha, of finding the passionate text messages she’d sent to another man, of the photos she’d sent wearing the lingerie he’d bought her. Those images would be seared into his brain forever. “I found out she’d been sleeping with someone else. Actually, a lot of someones.” He took a long sip of his whiskey, the alcohol leaving a distant burning sensation down his throat. “I’d never been so blindsided. So...heartbroken.” He shrugged. “I guess I’m just not ready for any of that, anything more serious. Not right now. Maybe not ever.”

      “She did a number on you,” Emma said, her blue eyes sad, empathy radiating from them.

      He nodded and shrugged.

      “What was her name?”

      “Sasha,” he said, almost at the level of a whisper. “I thought she was the one.” He remembered her dark eyes, her throaty, sexy laugh. The fact that she’d been so free in bed, willing to try anything, game for whatever he asked. Turned out, he wasn’t the only one she was free with.

      “But she wasn’t.”

      “No,” he said, biting off the word, eager to stop talking about Sasha. “But what about you? Why don’t you like the idea of Nost?”

      Xavier moved closer, and their knees touched. Emma didn’t move away. He took that as a good sign.

      She swooped her long, shaggy blond bangs from her forehead. “It seems like it’s just what men want. Not what women want. Women want commitment, they want relationships...”

      “Yes, with the right man, but what about the freedom to indulge in a fantasy, to play with someone who’s not the right man, but then walk away the next day? There’s something more liberating in that for women than men.” Now Xavier felt like he was right back in front of the venture capitalists, telling them why Nost was worth their time, and more importantly, their money. “Look, women choose. They always choose. We men? We’re powerless over that. We wait for you to decide. The power’s all yours.”

      Emma rested her chin on her elbow and cocked her head to one side. “You think?” She shifted a little, so that their knees and legs touched. They were side-by-side now, elbows almost touching on the bar.

      “Sure. You decide who’s fit enough, strong enough, alpha-male enough. Every decision women make about men is based on that immense responsibility—those thousands of years of you being the ones bearing the reproductive cost and the future of the species. That’s a lot of responsibility. But how are you supposed to know who’s right for you, who’s the perfect man, if you don’t play around? What if the man you always thought was perfect for you wasn’t, because you’d never allowed yourself to date outside that very confining box?”

      She sent him a lopsided smile. “You’re saying I need to sleep around with bad boys to find a good one.”

      He was aware of the feel of her thigh against his, the heat coming from her. “You need to know what it is you want. How are you supposed to know that without experimenting a little?”

      “But, it’s all so impersonal... How are you supposed to find something real when it’s all just fake?”

      “Oh, it’s far from fake,” he said with a strong shake of his head. “People can often have their most authentic connections when they’re with strangers. You don’t have to worry about what the other person might think, or if you’ll hurt their feelings or how you might be judged. You can be your real self because you aren’t worried

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