Page 4 of Dangerously Tempting
“No way. Not unless you tell me yours first.”
“That’s fair.” I tap my finger against the rim of my glass before lifting it to my mouth and downing the rest of the contents. “Let’s see,” I say, like I’m thinking about it and don’t already know the moment that will probably haunt me for decades to come. “I was fourteen and had recently discovered that the internet had lots of pornographic material to dive into.”
Her lips form a perfect ‘o’ and I can see it in her eyes and raised eyebrows that she’s already figured out where I’m going with this as she presses her lips together, trying not to laugh. It’s almost enough to make me not finish the story, but tit for tat. I owe her mine if I want to hear hers and to make her a bit more comfortable, so I keep talking.
“I was several minutes into my fun when my door swung open. And I mean full on open, smacking back against the wall and startling the hell out of me. My dad stood there, staring at me with my dick in my hand for what felt like forever before he finally said, ‘Glad to see you took after me in one regard, son, but next time can you make sure no one else is home first?’”
“Oh God, no,” she gasps, tears brimming in her eyes as she tries to choke back her laughter. She clutches the edge of the bar as her shoulders shake, a small snort escaping as she fights it back, and I can’t help but join in with her laughter as her cheeks flame red. “Can that count as mine?” she asks as she blushes a deeper red.
“Ha, nice try,” I say, bumping her elbow with my own. “We both know that does not contend with mine at all. Give up that juicy, embarrassing moment.”
“Fine,” she groans, drawing out the word before huffing out a breath and drawing her shoulders back like she’s hyping herself up. “I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this,” she says almost to herself, swiveling her gaze to stare at the wall of alcohol behind the bar. She can’t even look at me as she delivers the words.
“In college, I was living in a dorm with another girl, and we’d become pretty close friends. We went out to eat at a restaurant that was recommended to her by someone. It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t really good either, and we left disappointed. But that night,” she trails off, shaking her head as she glances at me for a second before turning back to the bottles.
“We didn’t have a bathroom in our room, it was several doors down the hall, and we both ended up sick. I wish I could say it was vomiting.” She grimaces. “It was even better. Shomiting.”
“Shomiting?” I question, and then it clicks. “Oh boy,” I say and she cuts in.
“I ended up squatting over our trash can because I knew I wasn’t going to make it down the hall before it came. Shomited with my roommate still in the room with me, whilst I sobbed my way through it.”
“I can’t even laugh at that,” I say, patting her shoulder as she covers her face with her hands. “You win. That was worse than the man that created me catching me masturbating and commenting on my size, by far.”
“So, so glad to claim that win,” she mutters into her hands, and I chuckle.
“We’ve all been hit by bad food a time or two. Better the trash than in the hallway where everyone saw, right?”
“Oh, a thousand percent. I would have died,“ she says, laughing in relief.
“Did your roommate ever let you live it down?”
“Oh, absolutely not.” She rolls her eyes. “She’s my best friend now, and we have so much dirt on each other we could bury the other eight feet under with it if we ever wanted to. The thing about getting all your shame out in the open pretty early into the relationship is that there’s really nothing shocking after that.” As the words leave her lips, I see it click into place and she narrows her eyes at me. “Is that what we’re doing here?”
I smile widely again, spreading my hands out to indicate it’s true with a shrug and tilt of my head. “Is it working?”
“Oddly enough, it kind of is. Thank you.” Her smile is soft. “But, I think you owe me one more to make us even.” She raises her brows at me expectantly and I can’t help but laugh.
“Fine, I think that’s fair.” I tap my chin, thinking of another, before holding a finger up as I know one that will make us even. “I was at my first ever party with alcohol and did not know my limits yet… at all. Drinking too much wasn’t enough, I had to try and impress the best looking girl there while totally shit faced. Things were going great until I needed to pee. We were standing out back on the porch, so I thought it would be a grand idea to just whip it out and pee over the side so we could keep talking.”
“You didn’t,“ she gasps.
“Oh, I did. Terrible teenage decision making. Bad news for me as there was no railing and my balance was absolute shit being that drunk. Mid pee I went over the side into a hedge and pissed all over myself.”
She snorts out a laugh, putting a hand over her mouth as she tries to calm herself down. “How does the masturbation story beat this one, again?” she questions, barely managing to get the words out before she laughs again.
I chuckle. “She moved away so I never had to see her face again. My dad? I still sometimes think about that moment and can’t look him in the eye.”
She pats my arm in sympathy and I reach up and grip her shoulder to keep her from slipping off the stool as she shakes with laughter. “We’re even,” she declares, and I throw my other hand up in the air like I’ve won something, and she laughs harder, dabbing at the tears gathering in her eyes.
We get a few looks, but I don’t even care. She’s over here with me, and not any of them. Let them watch. Even though we each had to embarrass ourselves to get here, she’s now comfortable in my company. I can tell by the way she leans into my hand a bit where it sits on her shoulder, her hair falling across my arm with the movement. Without thinking about it I brush it back over her shoulder once she’s righted herself, and she blushes again.
“So tell me more about yourself,” I begin, and we fall into the run-of-the-mill small talk that happens when getting to know someone new. We seem to dance around the big subjects like our jobs, where we’re from, and our last names. All things that keep this from feeling too serious, or real. It’s like there’s a scale we’re both afraid to tip and though I don’t understand it, it’s there nonetheless.
The more she talks, the more I’m lulled by the sound of her voice. There’s something so soothing about her tone, and when she gets sassy about something my spine straightens just a tad as the tone grabs my full attention. My body is reacting to her in a way that leaves me needing to know if it goes further than conversation.
There’s a chemistry that I just can’t deny and don’t want to. Because the cool facade that I’ve got in place is at odds with the way that my heart kicks up its pace every time her eyes meet mine, or how the hair on the back of my neck stands up every time we touch. I learned a long time ago to keep my cool, but she’s definitely got me riding the edge, one wrong move away from making a complete fool of myself.
We’re a couple drinks in by this point and we’ve slowly leaned closer to each other as we’ve talked, her knees turned towards my spread legs. I’m no better at holding my alcohol now than I was in high school because I don’t drink often, so it’s enough to lower my filter and have honesty slipping off my tongue.