At least she’d given as good as she’d got. She’d spotted the regretful ardor in his brown eyes before she walked away. She’d felt the hard ridge of his penis against her belly. If they could transfer all that sexual tension and passion onto the pages of her book, it would ignite. It might even make her a bestseller.
Her phone rang, and she jumped. Fewer than five people had her number, and—she glanced at the ornamental clock her brother had given her—and it was almost two in the morning.
“Hello,” she said, a little hesitantly.
“I was lying here on my bed in the dark, thinking how stupid I was leaving you after that kiss.”
Ava smiled into the phone.
“You there?” Ian asked.
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you.”
Ian laughed. “I was thinking that instead of kissing you goodbye, you would have asked me upstairs. Maybe offered me coffee.”
“Would I really make it?” she asked.
“No. That was just an excuse to get me to come up to your apartment so we could be together.”
“Do we need an excuse?”
“Ahh, good question. No, but twenty-first-century couples don’t just come out and say, ‘Why don’t you come upstairs with me so we can neck?’ We have to be way more restrained than that. Part of the pretending stuff I was telling you about.”
“But why? We’re living in one of the most liberated times and places of the ages.”
“It’s the power thing we talked about. The battle lines. You don’t tell a woman you’re falling for her. Women play hard to get. Men wait two days before calling a woman once he’s got her number.”
She swallowed. Was Ian falling for her? Or was he just talking in the abstract? Of course it was in the abstract.
“So where does the coffee thing come in?” she asked.
“Sometimes you want to break the rules.”
“So new rules were invented. Another dance, but each knows what the step really means.” Now this was making more sense to her.
“Exactly. You pretend you’re really going to make us something to drink. I pretend I’m interested in drinking it. Instead you’re in my arms.”
Ava closed her eyes at the idea of being in Ian’s arms again. Of kiss— Of necking with Ian on her couch.
“So we missed that opportunity.”
“Maybe that particular opportunity, but there is something else we can do. Tell me what you’re wearing.”
“What?” That was the last thing she’d expected him to say.
“You tell me what you’re wearing. Your voice turns all soft and low, like you’re half a second away from moaning. You tell me what you like. Where you want me to touch you. I respond by telling you what I’m doing to your body. This is what we call phone sex.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She’d studied some unusual ways to avoid approaching a potential suitor from her days as an intern on assignment. Anything from having a brother or uncle ask the groom’s intended bride for her hand in marriage on his behalf, or the ghost marriage, where the wedded couple never even met until after some type of sign from long-dead relatives that the union was sound. But sex was always done together and in the actual physical presence and with the other person.
“No, I’m serious. And if you study closely, I’m going to rock your world.”
She laughed because this guy knew a word like study would really attract her attention. “You just had to put it like that.”
“I know your inquisitive mind couldn’t stand not knowing something that has to do with sexual customs.”
Her heartbeat quickened. For the first time she was with a man who truly understood what made her excited and grabbed her attention. “Well, bring it on,” she invited.
“Tell me what you’re wearing.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THIS WAS SUPPOSED to rock her world? Although she doubted anything would come from it, she said, “I went upstairs, and changed into something that originates from Hawaii.”
She heard him swallow. “Describe it.”
Ava glanced down, a little confused. Ian seemed a little more interested in female clothing than most of her male acquaintances. “Bright pink and white flowers. They’re very large, but you can still see the canary color of the background material. The costume hangs straight from my shoulders.”
“What the—? Are you telling me you’re wearing a mu—”
“A muumuu. It’s a traditional gown, which is quite comfortable.”
“I know what a muumuu is.” Ian cleared his throat.
“It’s very eye-catching.”
“I can imagine that it is,” he said drily. “When you mentioned Hawaii, I was imagining a grass skirt and a coconut shell top.”
She laughed. “You imagine like a tourist. And although Hawaiian residents prefer more muted colors than what I’m wearing, this is pretty standard. I love the puffy sleeves.”
“Keep talking about it. It’s turning me the hell on.”
“Turning you on?” Was that what she was supposed to be doing here when describing her clothes? Her breath came out in a frustrated sigh. She’d totally missed that. And she didn’t usually miss that stuff. “Ah. Let me try this again.”
Ava grabbed the zipper on her muumuu and tugged, lowering the phone downward as she progressed. “Did you hear that?”
There was another long pause.
“Ian?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded like pure agonized strain.
Ava grinned. “Thought I’d lost you there.”
“You almost did.”
Her smile turned contemplative. She loved his honesty. “From the sound of things a moment ago, you didn’t think my dress was all that sexy,” Ava said, the teasing tone now gone.
“Since I met this seductive researcher, a lot of things I didn’t realize were sexy are pretty damn incredible.”
Her heart almost slammed into her ribs. All night they’d been playing games, flirting with each other. The dance, the back and forth of courtship. But now, in the early-morning hours they’d finally arrived at the real truth. He wanted her. She wanted him.
She couldn’t explain why, but then she really had no urge to. Who a person desired, what made a woman crave a man’s touch, what made a man hunger to wrap a specific woman in his arms rarely made sense on a logical level. She’d been studying it long enough to know that.
Ian made her burn. Made her nipples ache for his touch, her skin yearn for his caresses. And despite him leaving her on the stoop earlier this evening, Ian wanted her. The signs were all there. The way his pulse had beat at his temple. The way his brown eyes slightly dilated when he looked at her.
It didn’t make sense to want this man. He wasn’t an academic, didn’t share her interests and looked at her work with a good dose of skepticism. But pheromones and biology said take this man. Now.
She didn’t have an urge to make it logical.
Ava simply accepted it.
Now she’d embrace it.
The man had suggested that phone sex was twenty-first-century foreplay. She was a researcher…she should experience it. Okay, not right. She wouldn’t use that as an excuse to take part. Justification was a strange thing. Sprang up of its own free will. Ava wouldn’t rationalize wanting Ian. She’d just go with it.
“Tell me how we get started,” she told him. Her voice husky and filled with invitation.
“Tell me where you are.”
“I’m in my living room, looking out the window.”
“Are you looking toward my hotel? Were you thinking of me before I called?”
“Well, I was thinking of you, but I had no idea where your hotel is.”
“It’s west of you.”
Ava shook her head as she looked out into the night, not even bothering to guess which way was west. “Still not helping.”
“North, south, east, west—all simple concepts. Why is it that women can never seem to ‘get’ directions?”