Taming His Tutor

Her lower belly burned as she remembered how hard he’d slammed against her, how demandingly he’d kissed her, his tongue caressing so deeply.

But to go from so hot to so rejected so quickly?

That hurt plenty. That ripped the Band-Aid off her cut-up confidence. She’d thought he was as into it as she was. He’d kissed her like she was the most delicious dessert he’d ever tasted. He’d been turned on—his erection had been massive, hard, had to be uncomfortable so tightly constrained in his jeans.

But he’d stopped.

Of course he’d stopped.

She knew why. Same old reason. She’d been passive. Boring. Overwhelmed. Her hands had pressed against the wood even when he hadn’t been pinning them there. Letting him do all the work. He’d probably thought it was like kissing a crash-test dummy.

It was official. Scott had been right. After the initial schoolboy excitement of scoring a woman with big boobs, he’d reckoned the reality of screwing her was boring because she was so dull.

She’d wanted to get the moves—use all that app info. But when Joe had kissed her, all thoughts of technique flew right out of her head. All other thoughts as well. She’d barely been able to stay standing, let alone turn on the sexy skills. She’d failed again already.

And it hurt. So did the frustration. Because she’d almost had it—her first taste of truly fantastic sex. But she’d fucked it up.

Maybe she should unwrap Nadia’s hot-pink vibrating helper when she got home and get herself off. She ached with the emptiness, her clit sensitive and yearning for touch. But she was too depressed to get into the headspace. It just wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted Joe.

He didn’t want her.

Chapter Six

“Be nice, but not friendly. There is a difference.”

Joe gave up on trying to get some sleep and hit the pavement to run off the excess energy. He stepped up his pace, letting his lungs work and his muscles start to burn. He felt jaded. His balls heavy and tight, aching for the release they’d been denied.

Maybe he should have gone after her. Or should have taken what she’d offered, when she’d offered it. Had her hard up against that door and damn the possible chance of being sprung by a hundred baseball fans.

Heaven knew she wouldn’t have stopped him. She’d have let him do anything. Hell, if that idea didn’t just yank him harder than he’d ever been. He kicked himself for letting her walk. What had she spent her night doing? Had she gone off to find that other dweeb she’d targeted in her vixen campaign?

He ran faster, his breathing heavier and rough. Damn, the possessive devil riding him was a bitch. He hadn’t liked seeing Abbi smile at that guy. That’s what had sent him over the edge in the first place and made him push her to the point where she wouldn’t say no to him.

Instinct told him she wouldn’t have gone back to that other guy. She hadn’t looked at him the way she did Joe. Abbi wanted him.

He shouldn’t be this wound up. He got offers all the time. But recently he’d been too busy with work to take any of them up on it. And frankly, none had rung his bell.

Maybe he was paying for that period of abstinence now, wanting Abbi as much as an NBA championship ring.

He had no clue where she lived. But he knew where she worked. Without even thinking about it, he was halfway there already. Question was, what he was going to do when he got there?

He could never offer what a woman like Abbi would want. She was a relationship kind of girl—for all her wannabe-vixen attitude. She wanted to be a vixen, because she wanted to snare a guy. For good.

Joe had zero time for a relationship. Zero inclination. There was too much else he had to do and too much he didn’t want. Easygoing fun was so much better than emotional challenge. With his less-than-stellar childhood, he knew he was a first-class emotional fuckup. He wasn’t equipped—or willing—to keep a woman happy for the whole ever-after scene. Hell, he wouldn’t know where to start. He’d failed at fitting into so many homes, any kind of relationship was only ever going to be short-term for him. Better to end this with her before it had even begun. Much as he wanted to pursue her—and that was a first—he didn’t want to hurt her. So the very least he could do was finish it gently.

He stopped in front of the magazine’s headquarters. Yeah, lights were on, on the top floor. He glanced down the street—coffee shop.

Perfect.

…

Abbi ignored the phone. This was Sunday—no one was supposed to be at the office anyway, so whoever it was calling could just leave a message.

Except the phone kept ringing. Four times, then stopping before it went to voicemail. Again and again and again. Until in irritation she snatched it up, ready to leave it off the hook. But as soon as she lifted the handset, he spoke.

“I know that’s you, Abbi.”

Without thinking she put the receiver to her ear and answered. “How do you know?”

“It’s Sunday. Everyone else is in bed recovering from their Saturday night, whereas yours got cut short. How’s it going?”

Despite everything, she couldn’t stop the spurt of adrenaline—and anticipation—sizzling along her veins. “Okay.”

Truth was she’d slept so badly she’d come in ultra-early and had run all her tests. Everything was good to go for tomorrow and she was done. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Then come downstairs for a break.”

She hesitated. She shouldn’t. She should say no. But curiosity beat the mortification. “Only for a quick break.”

She was a glutton for punishment.

Joe was leaning against the side of the building, right beside the after-hours door, looking hot—literally—in a slick tee-and-sweats combo. He’d been exercising this early on a Sunday morning? That was sick.

“Peace offering.” He straightened and held out a cup, steam swirling out of the narrow sipper hole in the to-go lid.

Peace offering? He better not be here to apologize.

She took the cup and glanced at it dubiously. But it smelled good. Sweet. “Hot chocolate?”

He nodded.

“I wouldn’t have thought a gym instructor would advocate anyone consuming liquid sugar.” And he was looking so very gym instructor today in the loose workout gear. Tanned and fit and ready.

He was hot—and not just in the literal sense. But she refused to squirm at the sight of him. He didn’t want her; she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself by making her lust even more obvious than it already was.

“Studies show women who consume chocolate daily have a higher libido,” he said.

She paused, the cup an inch from her lips. “You made that up.”

“Google it. Add it to your app info. Women will love you for it.” He glanced at the cup. “You going to test it?”

Her libido didn’t need to be any higher, actually. She was already melting. Bu

t she couldn’t resist taking a sip.

His mouth quirked and he looked right into her eyes. “I’m sorry about last night.”

The chocolate lost all flavor and she swallowed it in an awkward gulp. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t feel like you have to be nice. It’s okay. You’re not interested. That’s fine.”

He stared at her so long she wondered if she had a huge chocolate milky mustache on her upper lip.

“What makes you think I’m not interested?” he asked.

The only thing to do was laugh it off. Make a joke out of the awful truth. “I kiss like a dead fish.”

“What?” He looked floored. “You what?”

Oh hell. Her pity alert sounded. She shouldn’t have said that—no guy wanted to hear about a woman’s insecurities, and she didn’t want to emotionally manipulate him into doing something he didn’t really want to do. So now she laughed and shrugged, then took another deep, long sip of chocolate and tried to act like she hadn’t meant a thing.

Joe stared at her that entire time, his brow furrowed, his mouth thinning. Finally he spoke. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“To apologize.” Abbi smiled at him and spoke breezily, pulling herself out of the piteous funk. “Because you’re polite and actually a nice guy.”

“You think I’m a nice guy.” His frown deepened.

“Yeah.” She didn’t get why he was looking more grumpy.

“I don’t like you thinking of me as nice.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips, suddenly nervous. “Okay.” Too bad, because he was nice. Even if he was looking intense.

“I’m not a nice guy,” he said shortly. “You should know you’re better off without me.”

She rolled her eyes.

He narrowed his. “The dead fish thing. Is that why you ran away?”

“I didn’t run away. I thought we were done.”

“We’re far from done.” He grabbed her free hand and planted it palm-down on the crotch of his sweats. “Abbi, does this feel ‘not interested’ to you?”