Calculated Exposure Read online

  “Um.” He rolled the stem of his fork between his thumb and forefinger and stared at his plate. “The area of math I study is mostly about theory. Making predictions. That sort of thing.”

  “Put it in dumb-dumb terms. I barely passed algebra.”

  His lips quirked up and he returned his gaze to meet hers. “Okay. If given a specific scenario with a certain set of data, I can devise formulas which will predict a probable outcome. That may be in terms of money, population growth or decline, commodities. That sort of thing.”

  “So…what do you want to be when you grow up? Stock analyst?”

  That made him drop his fork and laugh. “Hell no. I didn’t really know what I’d do, specifically, until the university recruited me for my master’s studies.” He twirled the corner of his napkin between his thumb and forefinger as he mused. “I get my knack for math from my mother. She was an accountant. I’m more interested in consulting. Problem-solving.”

  “What do you mean was? Is she…”

  “No, no. She’s just...” He picked up his fork and dragged the tines through his rice. “She’s sort of between jobs right now.” Suddenly, his expression went dark.

  Keep it light. Upbeat. “How long does it take to earn a PhD in mathematics?”

  He rolled his head back and groaned. “God. Whole bunch of factors play into that. Three years. Five. Ten. A hundred. I’ve been working on mine on and off for the past eight, nine years.”

  “Wow. Are you kidding? I pegged you at around twenty-five. Little baby genius.”

  “Hardly. I turned thirty-three in June.”

  She stared at him, waiting for him to recant, but when he stopped staring at the ceiling and fixed his eyes on her once more, his expression was serious.

  “You are not.”

  “I am. Don’t look it?”

  “Hell, no. You look young, boy.”

  He tucked into his picadillo with a shrug. “Good genes, I guess. My mother looks like a kid. Or maybe it’s all the alcohol. It’s probably preserving me from the inside out.”

  “Oh!” She scrambled to her feet and hurried to her little bar to fetch another drink. “Sorry. Wouldn’t want you to go dry, especially since you’re not driving.”

  He laughed as he accepted the drink. “You really thought I was that young, and you tried to pick me up anyway? You’re a bit young for a cougar, darlin’.”

  “I don’t know what I thought. I was just…” She clamped her jaw before lonely could pass her lips.

  From being on her own all those years, and even all those years with Tate, she’d learned it was absolutely possible to be depressingly lonely even when in the company of others. Sometimes, the loneliness was worse when she was around people. She’d even been lonely back in Miami in her family’s loud household. But, oddly enough, that pervasive feeling went away the moment two wild children knocked her on her ass in Maynooth. It’d taken that accidental, but genuine, interaction to wake her up, to make her want to engage. And this man with a devilish grin who didn’t want a damn thing from her called her on her bluff.

  And that’s all it was, because Erica didn’t have a brazen bone in her body.

  Now, there he was, and she enjoyed every minute of his company, but already the pretending made her tired.

  What choice did she have?

  Chapter 6

  “Are you serious? No, don’t!” Curt was too slow covering his face, judging by the way Erica had started giggling behind her camera. She’d gotten him in a shot.

  He lay supine on her overstuffed sofa, full as a tick from her excellent cooking, and letting the low buzz of the television in the background put him in a pre-slumber haze. For him, it had been a damned good night. Of course he hadn’t noticed the minx sneaking away to fetch her camera. One minute she was at the sink washing the dishes she wouldn’t let him help with and he must have passed out for a moment, because the next thing he knew, there was a camera in front of him.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. You looked so relaxed.” She smiled down at her viewfinder, and it was a wonderful smile brought on by such a small thing. Even a misanthrope like him could admit it.

  “It’s probably the only relaxing I’m going to get for a while. You regularly go around snapping pics of unsuspecting losers? Is that your ploy? Stuff ’em with food and then photograph them to within an inch of their lives? Then what do you do with the pictures? Is there some kind of fetish website? Overstuffed dot com, maybe?”

  “No, believe it or not, I don’t really take too many candid shots of people I know. This is new for me. Also? I don’t like my fetishes to involve food.”

  Nice to know she had some.

  He sat up a bit and leaned against the sofa arm. “Oh yeah? How do I rate so high to get the special treatment?”

  “You’re cute.”

  He guffawed. “Gorsh. If I got a haircut, would I cross over into the handsome realm?”

  “What’s wrong with cute?”

  “I’m thirty-three. Would you want to be called cute at thirty-three?”

  She pursed her lips and stared at the ceiling’s acoustical plaster. “No. I think I might be too much of a diva.”

  “See? And you’re not even thirty yet.”

  “What would you rather I call you?”

  Sitting up seemed a huge inconvenience and he groaned as he let his feet touch the floor. “How about damned sexy beast?” he said as he untied his shoes.

  She snorted.

  “I meant that.”

  She fell into a fit of giggles that escalated to her covering her mouth with one hand and putting the camera down to spare it from injury.

  Okay, maybe it was a little funny, so he grinned, too. He’d never met a woman quite like her. She was easy to read, shot straight from the hip. Didn’t play games. Her confidence was sexy as all get-out. Add that to the charm, the looks, the food. No woman had ever cooked much for him beyond the occasional pot of spaghetti, except Carla or sometimes Sharon. His mother burned toast.

  His smile dissolved even as he thought of her back in Cork with Jenny. The furor had already started, and Jenny struggled to handle it. She wasn’t especially articulate and let the overly aggressive reporters trick her into answering questions she wasn’t knowledgeable enough to answer well.

  He’d called her, just that afternoon, and told her to refer the journalists to him and to hang in there. They should get bored and go away soon, he figured. It’d felt like a lie even as he said it.

  He pushed his shoes beside the chair and tried to expel thoughts of Mum. There was nothing he could do at the moment, and this visit was supposed to be about distraction. Sexy, violet-scented distraction.

  When he looked up, he found Erica studying his face.

  “You alright? You looked a million miles away.”

  “Yeah, just…running numbers.” He tried for a smile again and found it wasn’t particularly difficult to manage, because the woman in front of him was just that spectacular. She’d make a good wife for someone. Hell, given enough time, she could probably whip him into shape, but he wouldn’t do that to her. It was a tall order.

  “Do you want some dessert?”

  He barked his laughter. “Fuck no, woman! Where would I put it?”

  She pouted.

  The pout was phony as hell, but he still hated seeing it on her. “Will it keep until tomorrow?”

  She raised her shoulders and let them fall.

  “Then come over here and warm my side.” He patted the sofa beside him.

  “I’ve got a better idea.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “There’s a television in the bedroom, and this is going to sound silly…”

  He made a gimmie gesture with his fingers. How bad could it be?

  “There’s this game show that comes on at eight on Telemundo. I never miss it unless I’m on assignment.”

  “A game show? Really? You really are a wild woman. I’m appalled,” he said, already clicking off the livi
ng room tube and standing in his sock-feet.

  “You have no idea.”

  “You sure this isn’t just your ploy to get me naked?”

  He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though her cheeks flushed. She turned around too quickly for him to verify it.

  “If I wanted you naked, I’d tell you outright.” She disappeared into the bedroom and flipped the light on.

  He followed.

  Her room was a wealth of rich tones: reds, browns, and golds. Heavy drapes in the darkest sienna blocked light from the apartment complex’s parking lot, so the room was dark, womb-like. The only illumination beyond the glow of the television came from a small, dim, outlet light in the attached bathroom. The bed, made and dressed with matching linens, was finished with an actual headboard and footboard, far more than Curt could say for his bed, the mattress of which butted up against the wall. He hadn’t had a headboard since he was an undergraduate living in the dormitories.

  She leaned against the pillows, tucked her long legs beneath her, and patted the bed beside her. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Anything for you, darlin’.” He unclasped his belt buckle, freed the button of his pants, lowered his zipper, and let his jeans fall to the floor. He stepped out of them and climbed onto the bed, watching her expression all the while.

  She seemed bemused. Nonplussed.

  “If I had known you were going to stuff me like a grape leaf, I would have worn sweatpants.”

  “Sweatpants, huh? You got an enviable style, rubio.”

  “I know.” He swept a hand down his body demonstrably. “Not everyone could pull this look off with my level of eclat. I’m a master.”

  “Eclat? What the hell does that even mean? English is my second language, remember?”

  “Splendor. ’Cause I’m splendid. What does rubio mean?”

  “Blond.” She reached over and gave his hair a flick as he fluffed up the way-too-damn-many pillows. “Really, what size are you, twenty-eight? You could probably borrow my pants if push came to shove.”

  “I doubt it, but you’re funny, so ha ha. I’m perfectly height-weight proportionate.”

  She squinted at him. “At what, five-ten?”

  “Thereabouts. Maybe a little taller. I tend to think in meters.”

  “And Celcius?”

  “Mm-hmm. Like most of the world that isn’t America.” He climbed onto the bed and leaned against the headboard. Once he’d settled, Erica scooted over and propped her head against his chest.

  She let out a little sigh, and reflexively he wrapped his right arm around her body and rubbed her side. He didn’t understand why he’d done it. Even as a baby he hadn’t been much for cuddling. Mum said she’d sometimes take him into her bed with her for company at night and he’d squirm and fidget until she put him back in the crib. Having his arm around Erica wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it was a more intimate gesture than he was usually capable of. A slight anxiety settled into him. For him, sex wasn’t always intimate. Sensual, yes, but intimacy was something else entirely.

  What must she be thinking?

  He blew the thought away on a breath. “So, tell me about this show. My Spanish is limited to what I need to know to order a cocktail in a Mexican bar.”

  “God forbid you never get lost in the barrio without a translator, huh? Well, it’s pretty silly, but self-explanatory, I promise. I can turn the captioning on.” She poised herself to sit up, but he tightened his arm around her.

  That anxiety again. Perhaps it was the tail end of the jetlag he’d been trying to shake or something.

  “Uh, that’s okay. How’d your adjustment to the time zone change go?”

  “I guess it didn’t bother me as much as I expected. Maybe it’s because I keep such an odd schedule. Whenever there’s breaking news, I have to drop what I’m doing and go. Peril of being a full-time employee, I guess. Can’t say no.”

  “You’ve got youth on your side, darlin’. The quick back-and-forth has been riding me all week, so excuse me if I pass out. I nearly fell asleep writing on the whiteboard during a class I taught this week.”

  She tensed. “If I had known, I would have rescheduled.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s cool. I’m on clean sheets next to a warm body and well-fed. It’s a trifecta of good things.”

  She nudged his ribs with her elbow with a scoff. “You could get all that from a housekeeper and a hot water bottle.”

  He cupped her chin with and angled her face toward his. “Quit it.”

  In his experience, when women made self-disparaging remarks, the response they expected from him in turn was a compliment of some sort. He never took the bait. If he was going to give one, it was because he really meant it. A couple of women had called him out on his lack of sensitivity in the past. “You could say something nice, Curt,” one had said. “That’s what any other man would do.”

  He’d rolled his eyes and asked the waitress for the check before responding with, “And that’s your number one mistake. Assuming I’m just like any other man.”

  Conceit hadn’t driven him to say it–his brutal straightforwardness had. He wasn’t like any other man and hadn’t had much practice being soft, except with the kids. Being kind to them came naturally. He didn’t have to work at it like he had for all those forgettable women he’d dated.

  Erica…she was different from those vacuous girls. Uncomplicated. She had enough of her own confidence that she didn’t need him propping her up. Low-maintenance. Sexy.

  He propped his glasses onto the top of his head and bent to meet her lips. Her lips against his quirked into a grin as she turned beneath his arm. With her angle improved, she wound her fingers through the hair at his nape and gave it a small yank, forcing his chin up.

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked as she kissed down his Adam’s apple and lingered at the neck of his shirt.

  “You don’t believe in equal partners, rubio?” She trailed her fingers along the sensitive skin at his collar, sending tiny jolts of electricity into his core.

  “When it comes to sex? No.” He drew away from her touch, his skin prickling where her fingers had been, and pulled his shirt over his head. “It’s a dance, darlin’. Someone has to lead, and someone has to follow.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  He sucked in some air as her palms pressed flat against his belly and she clamped her lush bottom lip between her teeth.

  “What?” he nudged.

  “You’re not so skinny.” She drew slow, tantalizing circles around his nipples with the tips of her fingers, and he pulled her closer to straddle his thighs. Fine. He’d lead.

  “I told you I’m fat where it matters.”

  When she ground her panty-covered crotch against the erection his boxer shorts barely covered, her eyes rolled up and her hungry stare incited him even more. This wasn’t a squeamish woman. She was one who knew if she kept poking a stick at a hungry bear, eventually he’d bite.

  And he bit. He worried his teeth at the soft lobe of her ear, the side of her neck, and down to where her neck met her shoulder even as he worked her dress over her ass.

  Her body clenched and he heard her little expulsion of breath as he probed the silk warmed by her skin and wet by her arousal. When he nudged the thin fabric aside to make way for one finger’s exploration of her slit, her breathing sped. The grip she had on his hair tightened, pulling him away from her neck.

  He grinned. “What’s wrong? Are you ticklish?” His fingers were still tangled up in the warmth at the apex of her thighs, and now, as he massaged upward, parting her cheeks and kneading her buttocks, her expression went dark.

  “What, you want to lead?” He ground her semi-exposed cunt against his crotch and watched her eyelids flutter as she grunted through clenched teeth.

  “I think sometimes being the bottom is harder work. I wouldn’t want to be a bad hostess, so feel free to service me in the manner of your choosing,” she said, expression blank.

  “Cu
te.”

  She shrugged, and let a smile span her face as she loosened the tie of her dress.

  He eased it down her shoulders and off her arms only to reveal yet another obstacle. Her slip.

  “Come on, darlin’. Who’s that for?” he asked as he pulled the slip up and over her head.

  She shifted back from him and got on her knees, teasing him with heavy, round breasts caged by a turquoise bra right at his eye level. “Maybe I was planning a striptease.”

  “It’s not too late.” He hooked his fingers into her panty elastic and eased the underwear to her knees. Nice. “Never mind. Look at ya.”

  “I see me. I see a lot of me every time I shower.”

  “Not from my view.” He put a hand where silk had been and watched her face as he flicked her clit.

  A widening of her eyes with a gasp, followed immediately the furrowing of her brow. She wrapped her hand around his wrist. “You gonna tease me or am I the only one getting naked?”

  He grunted his appreciation of her candor, but she’d forgotten he had another hand. Before she could clasp that one, too, he slipped two fingers into her wet cunt and scissored them.

  There was a little keening noise at the back of her throat, but even without the sound effects he knew she was ready. The clench of her sex around his fingers told him that. “What’s the rush, darlin’? I’m not so great with the whole basking-in-the-afterglow shit, but if this is about pleasure, why hurry it along?”

  She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “What if I want it fast and rough?”

  He cast his gaze upward, away from the breasts his teeth should be worrying at. Away from the succulent lips he should have been kissing. His cock was nearing the stage of erection where if he got much harder, the little head in his shorts would have more bloodflow than the one on his neck. If that happened, well, losing control wasn’t a good feeling for him.

  His eyes open again, before she could distract him further, he wrapped one arm around her ass and the other around her shoulders and leaned her back onto her bed. She kindly lifted her feet for him to peel her panties down her legs.

  He tossed his glasses onto the nightstand without care. Wouldn’t need them. He didn’t need to see. His nose worked just fine, so he’d follow the scent of feminine arousal to that warm, welcoming place, and let his tongue taste what she was offering. Screw fast and rough. There was a goddess before him. One didn’t jackhammer his cock into a goddess without making the proper sacrifice first.