by Vi Keeland
A. 4.9 to 5.5 inches long
B. 5.5 to 6.2 inches long
C. 6.2 to 7.0 inches long
D. 8.7 to 9.5 inches long
Without thinking, I had spread my thumb and pointer out for a visual of what six inches looked like. When I looked up, Ford arched his brow.
“I’d offer you a measuring stick. But I’m not average.”
His grin was so wicked, and he looked like he wanted to eat me alive.
I squirmed in my seat. “Ummm. I’m going to go with A.”
“For manhood’s sake, I’d like to say the answer is D. But I read this somewhere once, and I think it’s actually B.”
We’d decided to put my answers into the iPad so the computer could track one of our scores, but we kept his tally separate. So far, we were five questions in and he’d gotten three right, I’d gotten one right, and we’d both gotten one wrong.
The giant screens flashed the answer, and another point went to Ford. He flashed a smug smile.
“I got it wrong,” I said. “But I’m not disappointed to find out the average male is larger than I’d guessed.”
Ford winked. “You won’t be disappointed when you see mine either, beautiful.”
Jesus. I definitely needed another glass of wine.
A few minutes later, the next question appeared on the screen:
How many nerve endings does the clitoris have?
Oh Lord. It felt like about a gazillion at the moment.
The choices were:
A. 22
B. 310
C. 1,000
D. 8,000
We were both surprised to find out the answer was D. Well, no wonder.
Ford caught our waitress to order me another wine and declined a refill of his half-empty beer since he was driving.
I read the next question on the screen and shook my head. “Is this a setup? Are you friends with the owner and had him put up these questions when we got here or something?”
Ford looked down to read the question.
At what age does a woman reach her sexual peak?
He looked up. “I fucking love this game.”
I laughed and read the answers aloud:
A. 18
B. 25
C. 38
D. 45
Without consulting with me, Ford reached over and pressed C for our answer.
“I thought we were putting in my guesses?”
“Were you actually planning on picking something else?”
Ford’s phone buzzed on the table. We looked down and found Bella’s name flashing on the screen.
“I’d love to ignore it. But I can’t.” He groaned.
“No, of course. Get it.” His relationship with his sister was one of the things I liked most about him. She drove him nuts, but he was there for her a hundred-and-ten percent.
He swiped to answer, and the simple raise of his arm caused a muscle in his bicep to flex. I lifted my wine to my lips. That’s up there pretty high on my list, too.
“What happened?” Ford immediately stood. He dragged a hand through his hair as he listened. “I’ll be right there.”
One hand dug into his pocket, and he tossed a few bills on the table. “I need to go. Bella was just arrested.”
***
Saying the tension in the air was thick on the ride home was an understatement. Ford cursed at the car in front of him for making a right without a blinker and banged his hand on the steering wheel.
“Ford?” Annabella’s weak voice came from the backseat. She’d been lying down since we’d picked her up at the precinct. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Ford mumbled a string of curses and pulled down a side street. Bella struggled to work the door handle and stumbled out of the car. She took a few steps and bent her knees, leaning forward in a position ready to vomit. I reached for my door handle, but Ford stopped me.
“Don’t.”
“But…she could choke. She’ll get her hair in it.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on her from here. I’m not babying her, and I’m not letting you do it either.”
“Ford…”
He turned to face me. I’d never seen him truly angry before. His jaw was hard, his lips flattened to a grim line, and his voice had all the sternness of one very pissed-off father.
“She’s old enough to go to bars with a fake ID, buy weed, and get herself high and arrested, then she’s old enough to hold her own hair back. I’m not an asshole. I’ve sat in the bathroom and held her hair plenty when she was actually sick. But she’s on her own with this shit.”
While I struggled with watching a teenager get sick alone on the side of the road, it also wasn’t my place to decide how to parent her. I was a mom; I coddled people when they were sick or down—tough love wasn’t in my genetic makeup. Though I knew my ex-husband would probably be the same way if it were our son.
Watching Ford at the police station while he’d advocated on her behalf, and now seeing him angry and disappointed in his sister, I think I realized for the first time that he truly wasn’t a typical twenty-five-year-old. The life circumstances he’d been dealt had forced him to mature faster than most people his age.
He’d earned his adult card the hard way. And my treating him like he was still a boy had been insulting to him on so many levels. It was one thing to not want to date him because I wasn’t ready, but another altogether to hide behind an excuse that slighted him.
I looked out the window and checked on Bella, who was still dry heaving, then reached over and put my hand on Ford’s. His face softened infinitesimally, and he took a deep breath and laced his fingers with mine.
The half-hour drive home from the Hamptons took twice as long as it should’ve. We had to pull over three times for Bella to get sick—or at least because she thought she might get sick. As much as it pained me, I stayed in the car for all three stops. But when we got back to the house, I had to at least help her into bed. She babbled to me as I took off her shoes.
“Sometimes when I’d play at the beach all day, I’d be so tired after my bath that I’d fall asleep before Mom came in to brush my hair.”
I sat down on the bed beside her and pulled up the covers. “The beach knocks us out.”
“But when I woke up in the morning, my hair wasn’t a mess. Mom used to brush it while I slept.”
That made my heart hurt, whether she was wrong for what she did tonight or not. I smiled sadly and stroked her hair. “Moms have superpowers like that.”
“I miss her. She loved it out here so much.”
“It’s beautiful in Montauk, but I think what your mom probably liked best was being out here with her family without the everyday distractions.”
Annabella curled into the fetal position. I tucked the blanket all around her so she was wrapped like a sausage and stayed, rubbing her hair until she fell asleep.
I found Ford downstairs in the living room drinking an amber liquid from a tumbler.
“She’s asleep.”
He nodded and tilted the glass back to swallow the remnants in one gulp. “You want a drink?”
“Sure. But I don’t think I can drink whatever it is you’re having.”
Ford stood and walked to a wine rack in the kitchen. “I have the cab you like.”
I watched from the doorway while he pulled it out and proceeded to uncork it before filling a glass for me and refilling his own with liquor.
Returning to the living room together, he handed me the wine glass.
“You just happen to have the wine I like?” I bumped shoulders with him playfully.
“I also bought more of the cologne you said you liked last week.” Ford sat down and leaned his head against the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sure my eagerness is a sign of immaturity to you. But I just want to please you.”
I shook my head. God, I’ve been such a jerk.
“Actually, I find attentiveness in a man to be incredibly attracti
ve.”
Ford lifted the glass to his mouth and drank like he was taking medicine. “Let me guess, you find attentiveness attractive, but in your mind I’m just a boy, not a man, so it doesn’t apply to me.”
I sighed and set my wine glass down. “I’m sorry I’ve been treating you the way I have.”
He sat up and nodded, though his eyes were hesitant to accept my apology.
“Watching how you handled your sister tonight made me realize that you’re right—age isn’t what’s important.” I shook my head. “I know plenty of forty-year-old men who act like they’re teenagers.”
He still didn’t look convinced that my outlook had changed. I’d never asked a man on a date in my life. Hell, I hadn’t been on a date in more than twenty years, so who was I to judge how things should happen? I sat up taller and chugged back the rest of my wine before shifting to look directly at Ford.
“Would you…go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Can’t. Have a meeting in the city in the afternoon.”
“The night after?”
Ford’s thumb rubbed his bottom lip as he assessed me. “Do you feel bad for me because my parents were killed and I raised my little sister?”
I was honest. “Yes, I do. But that has nothing to do with why I’m asking you out.”
Usually his face was pretty easy to read, but this time I couldn’t see what was going on inside his head.
He stared at me some more before speaking again. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to go out with me?”
“You mean why today, when I’ve said no before?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean, tell me the reasons you want to go out with me.”
I squinted, unsure if he was screwing around. When I realized he was waiting for an actual answer, it didn’t take long to think of one. “You’re smart, funny, handsome, and mature.”
“So you aren’t just going out with me for a pity date?”
I smiled. “No. Definitely not.”
Ford knocked back the rest of his second drink and slammed the empty glass down on the table. He curled a hand around my neck and pulled me toward him. His lip twitched at the corner. “Just so you know, I would have taken a pity date. I don’t give a shit how I get it. But it was nice to hear you say those things.”
I play-shoved at his chest, though he didn’t budge.
“As long as you’re asking me out, how about you come here and kiss me for a change?”
I smiled and leaned in to brush my lips against his. When I went to pull back, Ford wound his fingers tightly into my hair and kept me there, deepening the kiss. It was hard and needy, and before it broke, he nipped at my bottom lip, causing a sting of pain.
I found myself thinking this kiss marked the official start of my summer fling—it was hard, needy, and had the sting of pain—a lot like how things would end come Labor Day.
“It’s about damn time,” he growled. “We already wasted almost half the summer.”
Chapter 15
* * *
Ford
I’d made reservations for two nights later at Blue—a new, high-end restaurant overlooking Lake Montauk. The dining room had dark walls, candlelit tables, and a view that made you forget you were only a few minutes from a highway. Soft music drifted in from a piano in an adjacent room being played by a man who sounded like a young Ray Charles. I’d never taken a date to a place that had slow dancing before.
“Wow. This is really nice,” Valentina said as I pulled her seat out.
Pushing her chair in, from the angle I stood, I could see right down her sexy, red dress. I leaned down, kissed her bare shoulder, and whispered in her ear. “I really love your dress. Especially the view from right here.”
Val looked up and followed my line of sight straight down to her cleavage.
She laughed. “And here I thought you actually liked the dress.”
“I do.” I winked. “I can’t wait to see it on your floor later.”
I took my seat, and the waiter arrived to take our drink orders. We ordered a bottle of the cabernet Val loved, and I deferred to her when he offered a sample to taste before pouring. Watching her swirl the crimson liquid in her glass and raise it to her lips made me realize I probably should have taken care of business before dinner. Even the lipstick mark she left behind on the rim of the glass turned me on. I had to discreetly adjust underneath the table when I imagined what that mark might look like on my dick.
Val leaned in when the waiter disappeared. “What’s going on in that head of yours? You’re staring like you’re deep in thought.”
I swallowed and blinked a few times. “Nothing. Just thinking about a meeting I had earlier today.”
She squinted. “You’re full of shit.”
That made me smile, because I was full of shit. But what I’d been thinking wasn’t exactly appropriate first-date material.
“I was just thinking how gorgeous you look tonight.”
She lifted her wine glass and brought it to her mouth again. I couldn’t wait to taste it on her lips later.
“That’s it?” She arched a brow. “You weren’t thinking about anything else?”
“I don’t think you really want to know.”
“Of course I do. Tell me.”
“You won’t hold it against me if it’s inappropriate?”
She smiled, and a devilish gleam sparkled from her eyes. “Of course not.”
Fuck it. If you really want to know… So much for being a gentleman, then. I waited until she set her glass back down on the table and pointed my eyes to the lipstick marks on it.
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “I was imagining looking down and seeing that mark around my cock.”
Val let out a nervous laugh, and I took a drink from my own glass to cool off. After that, our always-easy conversation felt off. We talked about my week in the city and what she’d been doing while I was gone, but it felt first-date awkward now and not like me and Val. I hoped I hadn’t actually upset her with what I’d said.
By the time we’d finished our appetizers, I needed to say something.
“Did I…take it too far with what I said earlier about the lipstick? I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Val wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “No. You didn’t upset me. You were being a perfect gentleman. I asked you what you’d been thinking about.”
“Then is something bothering you? It feels like something changed after I made that comment.”
Val looked back and forth between my eyes and swallowed. “It’s me. Not you.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m…nervous…about…you know.”
My brows furrowed. “What?”
She looked around and then leaned in and lowered her voice. “Sex.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t…it’s been…I was married for…” She shook her head. “I’ve only ever had sex with Ryan.”
Oh wow. I had no idea. But of course that made sense. She’d been with him since high school.
I tried to make light of it, calm her nerves. “I’m sure it hasn’t changed much. Candlewax dripping, riding crops, all four holes.”
Her eyes widened. “Four? What are the four?”
I laughed. “Relax. I’m kidding.” I shook my head. “Nothing has to happen until you’re ready. So stop thinking about it. You really need to stop overthinking everything and just take things as they come.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Things felt more relaxed after that. The waiter brought our dinner, and we fell back into our usual, comfortable conversation.
“How are things going between you and Bella?”
“She wasn’t around when I got home today, so I still haven’t seen her since that night. I texted her to check in while I was gone, but I only got one-word answers in response. Fine. Yes. No. Okay. Pretty sure she wanted to add fuck you to the end of each of
them, but managed to restrain herself. I don’t get it. She does something wrong, and then she acts pissed off at me, like I’m to blame.”
“She’s deflecting. If she’s pissed off at you, she doesn’t have to look inward. But Bella’s a smart girl. She knows she was wrong.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure you were no angel in college.”
“That’s the problem. I remember what I was doing at her age.”
Valentina smiled. “I skipped over the years of partying. I pretty much went from playing with dolls to having a real live one.”
After dinner, Val excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. While she was gone, I went over to the piano player and made a request. I guess he hadn’t had many because by the time she came back, he’d started to play my song: “Lady in Red.”
I stood. “Dance with me?”
“I’d love to. But I have two left feet, so I’m not responsible for any injuries.”
Even though it felt completely foreign to take a woman out on a date and ask her to slow dance, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hold Valentina close. We walked out to the dance floor, and I wrapped her tightly in my arms. She had one hand on my shoulder and the other clasped with mine.
“Did I mention how gorgeous you look tonight?”
“You did. I believe it was while you were looking down my dress.”
“I can’t help myself. I’m just so unbelievably attracted to you.”
She blushed. “Thank you. The feeling is mutual.”
I felt light—not just on my feet, but in my chest and in my mind. If someone had asked me a few months ago if I’d felt like I was in a dark place, I would have thought they were crazy. But we can adjust to almost anything—we start to be able to see in the darkness after a while, find comfort in it, even.
Val tucked her head into my chest, and we glided around the dance floor. It might’ve been the first time I was grateful my mother had forced me to learn how to dance. I felt content, swaying with this woman in my arms.
I knew Val needed to go slow, and even though I hadn’t had sex in a while, that was perfectly fine for me—this feeling was all I needed from her right now.