Page 37 of The Hook Up
“I know it’s silly,” she said. “I should have just put on another dress, but that one was perfect for the occasion.”
Ty swallowed hard, wondering why there was no air in the room.
Ellie’s words echoed in his head, sinking through the layers. He looked up at her, not sure what she meant.“Perfect for the occasion,” he repeated as his brain tried desperately to keep up with the conversation. “What’s the occasion?”
She didn’t answer right away but just stared at him like she was choosing her next words carefully, weighing them in her palms like dumbbells. Then she smiled, and something clenched deep in his gut.
“The occasion,” she said, “is that I planned to seduce you.”
CHAPTER8
Ellie held Ty’s gaze, fighting with everything she had not to blink or look away or hide under the couch like a big, fat chicken as she waited for his response to her bold declaration.
I planned to seduce you.
It was true, but so far nothing about this evening had gone right.
Ty stared like she’d just announced her intent to tie him to the bed and cover him with motor oil. She couldn’t tell from his expression whether he found that intriguing or horrifying.
She licked her lips, desperate to fill the awkward silence. “I know things got off to kind of a weird start,” she said. “I was planning to greet you at the door and hand you a glass of wine and make casual small talk about this article I just read on the differences between male and female orgasms, but them my kitchen flooded and now you’re sitting here shirtless on my couch and this is totally not how I saw this going, but I thought maybe?—”
“Okay.” Ty set her phone beside him on the sofa and reached out like he was going to take her hand. Then he stopped, resting both huge palms on his knees. “Just so we’re clear, are you just looking for a hookup, or were you thinking of something more, uh…” He stopped, frowning, and Ellie got the sense he was searching for a polite way to finish the same thought that had bounced through her brain all week.
“I’m not after a boyfriend or husband or stepdad or anything remotely like that,” she said. “Just sex.” She tucked a still-damp lock of hair behind one ear and held his gaze with hers. “And I thought maybe you might be on the same page.”
In all her fantasies, she’d sounded like a cool and composed modern woman. Not like a crazy lady sitting here in her bathrobe with wet hair and a goose egg on her forehead from where she’d whacked herself on the cupboard trying to fix her own damn pipe.
Ty’s face told her maybe he wasn’t too concerned with her lack of finesse. Maybe he wanted the same thing she did.
“I want you,” he said. “But?—”
Ellie winced. “I knew there’d be a but.” She wished the rejection didn’t sting this much. “How about we just pretend this never happened?”
“Ellie.” Ty put a hand on her leg, and she opened her eyes to stare at it. The sight of that massive palm cupping her satin-covered knee sent a full-body shiver rippling through her. His thumb flicked the fabric aside to reveal a bare swath of skin. Sliding his palm to the side, he claimed that flesh, too.
Something about the deliberateness of his movements braced her to meet his eyes again. “We’re totally on the same page here,” he said in a voice so low she had to lean closer to hear. “I want you. Ireallywant you. I figured the condom in my wallet clued you in.”
“Right.” Ellie nodded, still fixated on his fingertips making slow circles over her calf. She wondered if it was possible to have an orgasm just from a man touching her leg. At the rate he was going, it seemed likely.
“But I just used my only condom to fix your pipe,” he said. “So, unless you have a stash, we might need to call a halt to things for now.”
“Oh.” Relief sluiced through her, and she found herself grinning. “No problem there! I have tons of condoms. Thousands.”
“Uh—”
“Ribbed and flavored and extra-large and—” She stopped talking as his eyebrow lifted.Oh.“I don’t mean because I’m a raging hussy or anything like that.”
Ty smiled. “Hussy,” he repeated. “That was my grandmother’s favorite word.”
A spark of sadness lit his eyes for an instant, but he spoke again before Ellie asked about it. “I would never think of you that way,” he said. His palm clenched tighter around her knee as his fingertips stroked her calf. “And I’d never judge you for knowing what you want.”
Ellie laughed, wondering if she should just shut the hell up and kiss him before she killed the mojo completely. “I’ll be right back.”
She scrambled off the couch and raced down the hallway to her bedroom. She kept her Madame Butterfly stash in a locked cabinet to prevent Henry from stumbling onto it and mistaking the Tickle Me Pretty for a cat toy or something like that. She fumbled into the back of her jewelry box for the key, then jammed it into the cabinet lock and yanked the door open. As she pawed through her big box of condoms, it occurred to her how long it had been since she’d done this. Where did she even start? There were so many options.
Lubricated condoms, lambskin, pineapple flavored, condoms dotted with pleasure nubs?—
She grabbed the biggest handful she could manage and scrambled back to the living room, spilling condoms as she hustled back to where Ty sat waiting on the couch with a funny little smile on his face. His gaze moved to her hand as she opened her fist and dropped at least two dozen packets onto the sofa beside him.
