A Perfect Storm
Page 35

“How so?” She knew as little about a woman’s pleasure as she did of normal, healthy men.
“The sounds a woman makes when she comes, how she tightens.” His voice deepened, turned raspy. “How she gets wet and hot and out of control…” He drew to a halt.
He sure made it sound good. “Go on,” Arizona urged around the constriction in her throat, her chest and her stomach.
Spencer shook his head, his gaze intent on hers. “You understand my meaning.”
Heat flushed his cheekbones, intriguing her.
She leaned away to better gauge his expression. “You turning yourself on, Spence?”
“A little.” He took a deep breath, let it out and became more strident. “Getting a woman to climax is a rush, and most men will work hard to see that it happens.”
Hmm. “So are you saying that every woman you screw gets off like that?”
After a long look, his abrupt laugh broke the tension. “You’re priceless, you know that?”
No, she didn’t know. She’d always had a price, and it wasn’t all that much. “Avoiding the answer?”
“Men will lie about their success with women. Most men, anyway.”
“Even good men?”
“Afraid so.” He gave her such a warm look of affection, she felt it everywhere. “Because it’s so important to ensure that a woman enjoys herself, too, no man wants to admit it if she left his bed unsatisfied. It’d be a major blow to the male ego. But since I promised you complete honesty, I’ll admit that on occasion, it’s happened to me.”
Being theatrical, Arizona put a hand to her chest. “No!”
“Not often since I’ve matured, and not for lack of trying on my part. But women are complex. Far more so than men.”
“So even a woman you didn’t care about—”
“I wouldn’t have sex with a woman I didn’t care about.”
“Oh, baloney!” No way would she let him make that claim. “Men have casual sex all the time.”
“As do women,” he agreed. “But there has to be an attraction, and that denotes at least some level of regard.”
Given his demeanor, she felt like teasing him. “Never bought sex, huh?”
“No, I haven’t. Certainly not from an underage girl.”
“Don’t get your boxers in a bunch. I just made an observation.”
His slight frown didn’t lift. “You do realize that there’s a big difference between a woman who chooses to prostitute herself, and a woman forced to do so?”
“Yeah, the one choosing it must be nuts.”
“More likely desperate, but not always. The point is that a real man would never try to force himself on a woman, or participate in any way when someone else is forcing her. In fact, he’d do everything in his power to stop it.”
That hadn’t been her experience; she’d known only men willing to turn a blind eye, willing to participate and willing to overlook the obvious. “Must be a lack of real men in the world.”
“That’s a jaded view, honey, and sooner or later you’ll realize it.” To keep her from protesting that, he continued, “I do my best physically, hope I’m reading the woman right so that I go slowly when she wants me to, harder and faster when that’s what she needs, but it can still be a guessing game, and I sometimes fall short.”
“You ever had a woman complain?”
He smiled. “More often than not, I’m successful.”
Yeah, she could believe that. “Braggart.”
“Being honest, as I promised.”
He’d told her a whole lot of nuanced stuff without any of the nitty-gritty mechanics. But for now—since she was a little too overheated herself—she decided to let it go. “Thanks for the education.” She slapped her hands to her bare knees. “It’s been great, but now I need to—”
“Give me the kiss you owe me.”
Her stomach bottomed out, her legs turned to noodles, and her backbone froze stiff. A feeling not unlike alarm, but probably more like anticipation, churned inside her.
Spencer brought her face around to his. “You cursed.”
“I didn’t.” Did she? “When?”
“When I first got here. Twice actually, so I suppose if we’re accurate, you owe me two kisses.”
What had she said? What had she…oh, yeah. She remembered her outburst, and her slipups. But that was partly his fault. “You took me by surprise.”
“I know. And it’s bound to happen again, so you might as well get used to paying the piper.”
Her pulse jumped. “I don’t know if I can.” God, she hated how small her voice sounded, how weak and silly. “Spencer—”
“You haven’t had any pleasant kisses, either?”
“No.” She amended that with, “I offered with Jackson, but you already know that.”
He nodded. “And since you offered for the wrong reasons, he turned you down.”
“He’d have turned me down anyway, no matter why I offered.” She shrugged. “Like I said, he feels sorry for me.”
Spencer let that go to say, “It’s just a kiss. Why does that scare you?”
Swallowing wasn’t easy. She shook her head, unwilling to spill her guts. He probably saw her as fearless; she tried hard enough to give that impression. But she knew the truth: she was a terrible coward.