Page 31 of Eye Candy

Every dayI received emails asking for my advice on ethical conduct—men from all over the country wrote to me for guidance. I’d carefully built my reputation for equanimity, integrity, and thoughtfulness.

And I was two seconds away from setting it all on fire for a con artist.

“Now I have some questions I want answers to. How old are you?” I asked, replacing my glasses.

Call it a hunch, but I didn’t think she was twenty-seven, like my brother Joe and the real Teddy Bircher. They’d gotten engaged when they were nineteen, and broke up a year later. Floss seemed older. Like she’d seen more. Maybe circumstances had meant she’d had to grow up early. I wanted to know. And that was the root of the issue: I wanted this woman so badly I couldn’t see straight, but I had no idea if she’d told me one true thing in the span of our acquaintance.

“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to.”

She tried to slide off the bar again. I blocked her with my body. Her legs were on either side of my hips. If she’d wanted, she could have swung off the other side of the bar and left. But she didn’t. She stayed where she was. She liked that I was pinning her in place, I knew she did.

Then she grabbed a nearby champagne bottle sitting on the bar and wedged it between her legs, a glass barrier between her groin and mine.

Palm up, she flicked a bladed hand toward it and said, “This is so you don’t get ideas.”

“Are you kidding me? You don’t need a bottle to stop me touching you.”

She sighed. “OK, OK. It’s to stopmetouchingyou.”

“You’d need my consent, too, brat.”

Her eyes were wide and locked on mine. Finally, she was seeing me, really seeing me. When she recovered from her shock, her beautiful lips quirked at the corners. She was a con artist, so of course she was going to find a way to use this to her advantage.But I couldn’t find it in myself to be upset; I was too interested in what she might say or do.

I’d thrown down the gauntlet, and now everything hinged on her response.

“What do you consent to then, Mr. Moral?” She tossed her candy floss hair. “For example, if I put your hands on me…” She plucked my hands up off the bar and spread them over her upper legs. “How’s that? On a scale offuck notolet’s fuck?”

“Fuck off,” I replied, without malice.

Her practiced smile melted away and heat burned in her eyes. Before I could react, she scooted her ass forward on the bar and I had to twist my hips so she didn’t crush my rapidly thickening dick with the bottle she’d wedged between us. Then she leaned back on her elbows. A groan escaped me when I saw how she was pressing herself into the bottle. Rubbing it.

“You love tormenting me.” I tightened my fingers, watching soft dents appear in the generous flesh of her legs. Her thighs were magnificent. I wanted them draped over my shoulders.

She made a needy noise deep in her throat and tipped her head back. “Touch me, Chase.”

Being a good man was important to me. I never drank to excess, jumped queues, or ghosted a bad date. I called my mother on Sundays and gave a lot of money to charity. I didn’t grope women on top of bars or tell them to fuck off or call them brats—even if they were.

My sense of self had taken a lot of hits tonight, but enough remained that I knew this was a bad idea.

“Not here. I don’t like being stared at.” I grabbed the neck of the bottle between her legs. It was going to occupy a place of honor on my coffee table, but first I needed to contain the situation. Containher. “Get down. Francis’s people will be trying to clean up?—”

She clapped her hands over mine on the bottle. “Everyone left. Greta and Francis went up to his office. We have at least twentyminutes before they finish whatever they’re doing—bet it’s sex—and lock up.”

I whipped my head around. She was right, the bar had emptied. There was only one person wiping down tables, and they couldn’t see us here on the upper level.

Floss tightened her fingers over mine, and when I looked back at her, she slowly rolled her hips into the bottle, baiting me.

My resolve crumbled. As she knew it would. Truthfully, I was grateful for her goading. I was tired of holding back, tired of not touching her.

Still, I had to ask. I always asked. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

She dropped her eyelashes, forcing me to lean closer to hear her. “I want you to rail me until I can’t remember my name. I want to come twice, once when you finger me and again as you push your cock into me and fuck like a hurricane wouldn’t stop you. But, sure, I’ll start with a kiss. If you’re offering.”

This woman will ruin my life.

I kissed her anyway.

Floss fought me with her mouth like she fought me with her words. Caution and better judgment crumbled around me. When our tongues tangled, I forgot about where we were and who she wasn’t. I wanted to press my soul into her lips and drag hers out in return.

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