The Rebound Guy Read online

  “I wanted you,” she whispered and turned her face to his chest. She kissed the smooth skin, tasting his heartbeat and his salty sweat on her lips. “I wanted you inside me.”

  “It’s okay. We’ve only just begun.” Eric punctuated his words with a deep thrust that renewed the pulsing inside her. She responded with a startled gasp and clung to him, desperate for more.

  “You feel good against me.” Eric’s whisper in her ear made her body tingle and her nipples ache. She arched, pushing her hips forward to take his fingers deeper. Did he know how good he felt to her?

  He surged forward again and she moaned, brought her hand up to his face and caressed the dark stubble on his lower jaw. She guided his head down to her breast, urging him to suck again. The rasp of his unshaven cheek against her hypersensitive skin made her tight and wet.

  Slowly, he drew his fingers out of her, trailed her thick cream along her inner thigh and her belly.

  “More! Don’t stop.” God, was she begging? “I haven’t even started yet.” He shoved her open jeans down her hips and she craved the roughness of it. She’d never been so eager to be naked. Kicking the heavy fabric down, Lauren helped him push the tight denim over her knees until finally she was free. She moved to sit up and pull off her blouse, but he stopped her, rested one hand on the center of her chest above her heart and pushed her back into the pillows. “Leave it on, I like it.”

  Lauren liked it, too. So much so that she hadn’t thought about Mark since they’d hit the bed. Or had she? It didn’t matter. Mark didn’t matter.

  She closed her eyes against the unwanted images of her now ex-boyfriend and concentrated on the sensual friction of Eric’s hands on her. Giving him access anywhere he wanted to go, she moved with him, as he explored her body inch by inch.

  When he ran his hands up her thighs and over her hips, she shivered. He skimmed his fingers over her belly and followed his hands with a trail of kisses that set her nerves on fire. She wrapped her legs around his thigh and squeezed to ease the ache in her clit when the first stirrings of a second orgasm began deep in her womb.

  When he suddenly vaulted off the bed, she cried out and reached for him.

  “Stay right here, don’t move. I’ll be right back.” His wicked grin in the crimson glow reassured her he hadn’t changed his mind. Lauren smiled as he peeled off his jeans and slid his briefs down over his hips.

  His erection sprang thick and long from a nest of dark hair. Lauren shifted on the bed in anticipation. She’d imagined Eric naked. In fact, she and Tara and Roxy had even speculated on what a nice guy like Eric might be like in bed.

  She couldn’t believe she was about to find out.

  He produced a condom packet from a nearby drawer and tore the wrapper with his teeth. “Are you ready for this?” Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded. She watched him from under lowered lashes, her body trembling as he knelt between her legs and tore the rest of the foil wrapper from the condom. He rolled the latex over his cock and Lauren bit her lip again. Who knew good, sweet Eric, who blushed at dirty jokes, was hiding such enormous equipment under his sensible Dockers and faded jeans?

  He lowered himself to her, guiding the tip of his penis to the right spot, just above her opening. He held there a moment and his eyes seemed dark and dangerous. Lauren imagined he was about to unleash the beast that lived under that good boy exterior—the beast she needed to ease her broken heart.

  “I want you to talk to me.” He placed one hand on her hip as she rose to meet him. “Talk to me and tell me how it feels. Tell me what you want.

  Tell me everything.”

  “I want you now, Eric! Now.”

  Anything for a friend, Eric thought as he slid his cock into Lauren’s waiting heat. She opened to him slowly, her head thrown back to expose the long, sexy column of her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut as she accepted his length, and she curled up around him, raising herself to match his movements as he sheathed himself in her.

  As he lowered his body over her, she shifted her hips and wrapped her legs around his back, pressing him deeper. He whispered wordless encouragement in her ear as he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her close. Joined together now, their bodies finally one, he started to move.

  “Tell me.”

  “Eric, you feel so good. I want you deep…please…”

  Every breathless word made him hotter and harder. He licked her throat, nipped at her jaw, and felt her tense in his arms when he bent to suck one nipple, then the other.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked when she whimpered against his shoulder.

  “No—oh! I had no idea you were so big.”

  What every man likes to hear. He thrust harder, letting her feel every inch of him. The friction built and her body tightened around him. Her nails raked up his back, exciting the nerves, making him move faster. He took her mouth again as she moaned his name. He swallowed her breath, tasted her arousal.

  Somewhere deep in his balls, his orgasm began and he realized he needed to race to meet it. He wanted it fast so he could revel in the act of coming inside her, delivering himself into her body. He braced himself with one arm on the mattress and steadied her beneath him with the other.

  She panted his name, and when she grabbed his ass and held on, raising herself up against him, he let loose. A ragged gasp escaped him coupled with her name as he exploded and, just as he’d fantasized, he felt her shudder in his arms, her body trembling in sweet release as her third orgasm squeezed him to ecstasy.

  •

  Hours later, the sex play began again in earnest. Eric, rejuvenated from a brief sleep, set to work exploring Lauren’s willing body with his tongue.

  She gasped as he worked his way from the back of her neck, down her spine, kissing, sucking and nipping at her flesh. She clutched the rumpled blankets and tensed when he spread her legs again and settled his lean hips between them. His erection parted her folds from behind, the cool, slick latex of the condom a contrast to her feverish heat. He slipped into her again and remained sheathed, still and tight inside her.

  One hand worked under her, cupping her breast.

  His gentle thrusts pressed her body into the mattress, and her clit rubbed against the sheets.

  “Harder, Eric, please…” She panted and whispered and sighed to him as he worked her up again. He increased speed and accuracy, hitting that spot inside her that made her ache with need.

  “That’s it.” He coaxed her body off the bed, pulled her hips against his. “Tell me how it feels inside you.”

  “Hot…hard. Oh, God, I’m coming again.”

  He chuckled in her ear, bit her shoulder lightly, and gave her all of him at once. “Me, too. Your voice makes me come, hearing you ask for it.”

  She tensed beneath him before the next wave hit, then bucked hard, seeking to take him and hold him while he spent himself in her. His body, all tight muscles and hard planes, shuddered against her for a long, intense moment, then he lowered them both to the bed, wrapping his legs and arms around her while she trembled in the wake of it.

  “God, Lauren, what you do to me.”

  Chapter Three

  Lauren awoke to the sound of Eric’s shower, the water thrumming against the bathroom tiles on the other side of the wall behind her head.

  She stretched, releasing the kinks in her neck and back, and luxuriating in the feel of having been thoroughly loved. The scent of his cologne clung to her and the warmth of his lean, hard body lingered between her legs. The last of the four condom wrappers tumbled from the mattress as she rolled over and faced reality square in the bloodshot eyes.

  She’d slept with Eric. She’d used him to assuage the gut-wrenching pain of finding Mark with another woman.

  How could she begin to apologize?

  The water shut off abruptly, and Lauren’s heart did a somersault in her chest. She sat up, clutching the sheet and her blouse around her.

  The clock beside the bed read 7:55. They’d been in bed for te
n hours—

  very little of it asleep.

  The bathroom door opened with a puff of steam, and Eric strolled out in his underwear, a damp towel draped over his broad shoulders. His dark hair stood out in all directions, spiky and shiny from the shower, and his lower jaw was smooth from a fresh shave.

  Something squeezed Lauren’s runaway heart, and she blushed at the thought that only a few hours ago, she’d been straddling him, riding him to a mutual orgasm that had left them both breathless and exhausted.

  “Good morning,” he said with the exact same tone he used when they met in the elevator of her office building. Why had she expected differently?

  “Um…good morning. How—”

  His head disappeared under the towel and he rubbed vigorously.

  When he emerged, his hair was nearly dry, and it looked sexy and soft.

  What woman wouldn’t kill to be able to do that? He bent over the bed and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “I’ve got to go to work. There are clean towels if you want to take a shower, and cereal in the kitchen.

  I’ve only got Cheerios, hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh…thanks…I—”

  “You don’t have your car here…do you want me to call you a cab?”

  “No. I’ll do it, later.” Lauren grew cold by degrees as she watched Eric pull on a clean pair of pants and a crisp white shirt from his closet. What had she expected the morning after a night of incredible sex with him to be like? Hearts and flowers? A marriage proposal?

  She hadn’t come here looking for the world to stop revolving, after all.

  All she’d wanted was a few hours diversion from her heartache with a man she trusted to give her what she needed. Eric had done that. And then some.

  Why, then, did she feel so horrible and so abandoned?

  “Call me later,” he said as he straightened his collar and ran a hand through his hair. He looked fantastic. Better than he had last night, better than he’d ever looked. Lauren raised a hand to her hair, which had to be a frizzy mess. She probably had raccoon eyes and sheet face besides. No wonder he hadn’t actually made eye contact with her since he walked into the room.

  “Okay… Have a…a good day.” She gave him a wan, uncertain smile.

  “You, too. Oh, do you want to have lunch on Sunday?”

  Sunday? Lunch on Sunday? No. She wanted to have sex on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday night and every day in between now and Sunday. And she wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and hide where the shame of her own slutty actions couldn’t follow.

  “Sunday’s fine.”

  “Great. Bye.” “Bye.” Lauren sat as still as a statue until she heard Eric’s front door close and his car start. Then she hurled herself over the side of the bed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. She had to call Tara—or Roxy—whoever answered the phone first, and beg them to figure out a way to turn back time and erase the awful mistake she’d made.

  •

  Don’t blow this, don’t blow this. Eric repeated the mantra over and over as he eased into traffic on the turnpike. The hardest thing he’d ever done was leave Lauren in his bed this morning.

  She’d looked like a goddess, her auburn hair sultry and wild from their uninhibited night. Her green eyes were heavy lidded, smudged with smoky eye shadow, and her lips swollen and pink from his kisses.

  He’d left her looking like a temple concubine out of some hot fantasy novel, wrapped in his sheets, one curvy thigh partially visible, the collar of her black blouse standing up around her bare throat.

  What kind of wuss walks away from that? Every fiber in his being demanded he stay and take her again and again until she cried out his name the way she had at four a.m. when he’d brought her to her final orgasm before they’d fallen blissfully asleep in each other’s arms.

  Why hadn’t he followed his heart—or was it his cock? Mental illness, the bad Eric suggested as he picked up speed to match the flow of late rush hour traffic.

  No. The big reason, of course, was lack of condoms. Since his last girlfriend had dumped him for the man who’d run up a thousand-dollar debt on her credit card playing on-line Texas Hold’em, he hadn’t bothered to replenish his stock. Forced celibacy was good for the spirit, he’d told himself.

  Bullshit. He’d never felt more spiritual or soulful as when he’d held Lauren in his arms and kissed her while she came around him that final time. The truth was, if he’d had a twelve pack of Trojans somewhere in his apartment, he’d never have left.

  Of course, he’d considered going free-style, but what would Lauren have thought of him? Would she have seen him as irresponsible and careless? A bad boy?

  Damn. Maybe that’s exactly what he should have done. Though he had no idea if she was on the pill or anything. He figured she was. It wasn’t something they normally talked about. He wasn’t one of her girlfriends, after all.

  That brought him around to the real reason he’d pried himself out of bed, taken a long, cool shower, and forced himself to get dressed and go to work this morning while she fixed him with that languid, sexy gaze of hers.

  He wanted Lauren. He wanted her so badly he’d jerked off twice under the tepid water before he trusted himself to walk back into the bedroom. While he’d imagined sex with her would be good—let’s face it, he’d never imagined bad sex with anyone—he’d never thought it would totally blow him away.

  But the truth was, she’d wanted him because she’d broken up with Mark. Idiot Mark. What had he done to make Lauren dump him?

  Something stupid, no doubt. Something really horrible that would have her running back to him, practically begging to get hurt again. That’s what women did, wasn’t it?

  They liked the challenge of thinking they could make a bad boy change. They all wanted to be the “one” who tamed the beast within and turned him into a puppy dog.

  Lauren had used him. And that didn’t bother him. He was her friend.

  He’d always be there for her when she needed him. Whether she needed a pat on the back and a shoulder to cry on or a mind-blowing fuck—well, he was up for both.

  What bothered him was that he wanted her to do it again. He wanted to figure out how to be the one she went running back to—the one she couldn’t get out of her system.

  The only way he knew how to do that was to ignore his urge to fall on his knees at the foot of his bed this morning and worship her. He had to walk away, go about his life and treat her as if nothing spectacular had happened. He had to practically ignore her, even if it killed him.

  Chapter Four

  “You’re where?” Tara’s voice sounded tinny and distant over the phone, making Lauren’s suddenly skewed world seem all the more surreal.

  “I’m in Eric’s…apartment.” She wanted to say “bed”. In fact, she’d said “bed” the first time and she hoped Tara hadn’t heard her clearly. No such luck.

  “Bed. You said bed, didn’t you?”

  Lauren swallowed the knot that had formed in her throat. “Yes,” she said as she scooped up her jeans and headed for the bathroom.

  “You did it with Eric? Eric Reynolds?” Tara’s voice rose with each word and Lauren’s heart sank lower and lower. What had she done?

  Even Tara was shocked.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Was he good? Did he say please and thank you?” Was that a twang of jealousy in Tara’s voice, or annoyance? She’d always thought Eric’s good boy exterior was an elaborate act. Not that she disliked him, she’d just had enough experience with bad boys to know they could disguise themselves really well. Maybe Tara was right, and now that Lauren dug under the surface, she’d found the real man underneath—the insatiable sex god who could walk away from a night of multiple orgasms as easily as he could walk away from a cold cup of coffee.

  “He was…” The best she’d ever had. “Fine. He was great.”

  Tara’s voice dropped back to normal pitch. “So what’s the matter?”

  “I
hate myself. I feel terrible. I should never have used Eric like that. I think he hates me now. He just left for work.” “Well, hon, the man has to work, you know? Don’t we all? What about you? It’s after 8:30 and you’re still lounging around in Eric’s bed?”

  “I called in late. I’ll never make it to the office by nine. I’m going to call Roxy and see if she can give me a ride home and a good talking to. I need your help to figure out how to make this up to Eric.”

  “You want to apologize for having sex with him?”

  “Yes.” It sounded ludicrous when Tara put it into words, but that’s exactly what she wanted.

  Tara laughed. “Hon, you made his year. He’s been hot for you for a long time.”

  “Come on.” Lauren tossed her jeans in a heap and wiped condensation from the bathroom mirror with a wad of toilet paper. A frizzy haired raccoon stared back at her and she cringed. “Eric and I are just friends, we could never be lovers.” The word echoed off the damp tile. Lovers.

  They were lovers now. Did that mean they weren’t friends anymore?

  Why hadn’t she picked someone else to be her rebound guy? Then she could call Eric for advice and he’d know just what to do. She needed a man’s perspective on this and the only man she trusted had just left her with a cheery goodbye and an offer of Sunday brunch.

  “Let’s meet for lunch,” Tara said. “How about Blue’s Diner?”

  “Okay. I’ll see you at noon.”

  Lauren’s hand shook as she hung up the phone and placed it on the back of the toilet. At least she had a much needed therapy session with her two best girlfriends scheduled, but that didn’t help her at the moment.

  She looked around the bathroom. She didn’t even have a toothbrush here. Should she shower? Make the bed?

  She decided to just freshen up, dig her panties out of her purse and leave him a note, but what to say?

  Thanks for the spectacular night. See ya Sunday? XX OO XX.