Teach Me (Lessons in Seduction Book 1) (6 page)

Afraid of getting in trouble, she’d run out of the house to hide behind the planters on the front steps.

“Careful now,”
the man had said as he followed her out to where she was hiding, fighting tears. “
What’s your name, pretty?”

“Eva,”
she’d responded.

She quivered as more of the memory flooded back.

Before she’d known what was happening, her father had flown through the door, scooped Eva up, and deposited her back inside. He’d yelled in Italian at the man, but by then the man had been halfway down the street.

Don’t you ever talk to strangers again, Evie. Do you hear me?
He’d shouted, holding her by the shoulders.

She hadn’t known what to say. She’d never seen her father so upset.

Now, she turned to look after the man who’d passed her, but he was gone. Even though she’d only seen a glimpse of him, she couldn’t fight the sensation of déjà vu that crept up her spine.

Stop, Eva. That was like what, twenty years ago?
she told herself as she rushed home to change.
You have more important things to think about, anyway.

It was true. She was facing down one of the most transformative moments of her life.

She needed to concentrate on only one thing right now. She was going to learn to play it cool so that tonight, she would rock Jack’s world as thoroughly as he rocked hers.

“
I
don’t get it
.” Georgie laughed as she tossed her curly mane of blonde hair. “I mean, even if he is Jack Bennett, in the end, he’s just a guy.”

Of course she didn’t get it. Georgie had just done that little flip thing with her hair, and all men within a ten-mile radius were salivating. She had a husky, smoky voice that oozed sex, and managed to get away with doing outrageous things that ordinary people couldn’t. Only Georgie could pull off a skin-tight black dress with two skulls and crossbones over the tits, worn with chunky socks and combat boots. Only Georgie could tell the bartender to fuck off because the drinks were too watered-down, then get behind the bar and start pouring her own.

Only Georgie could start every Monday morning marketing meeting at Eva’s Organics with, “Listen up, motherfuckers,” and still have a job. Georgie had confidence to spare.

Sometimes Eva wished Georgie could donate some of it to her, like a blood transfusion.

“I know, I know,” she said, trying to laugh off her nerves. “But I don’t have much experience with guys. When it came to having a social life, Antonio pretty much kept me chained in the house. So men…intimidate me.”

“That’s your brother and father talking,” Georgie said. “I’m sure they didn’t expect you to stay twelve your whole life, Eva. You have to get them out of your head tonight and just let loose.”

Nelson downed his vodka martini and signaled to the bartender for another round. “Besides, guys shouldn’t intimidate you. We’re big, dumb puppy dogs. Overenthusiastic at times, but mostly harmless.”

Eva cringed. “You know I’m a cat person.”

“Forget puppies. Guys are more like assholes.” Georgie grinned at Nelson. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Nelson nodded his thanks. “Assholes? You mean, everyone has one?”

Georgie pulled the cherry out of her drink and sucked it off its stem. “No, I just mean that they’re assholes. The end.”

Nelson said, “So let me guess. You broke up with Victor?”

She shrugged. “
Asshole
was too good for him. I prefer to call him
Fuckface
, thank you very much.”

Eva groaned. This wasn’t helping. She was more stressed out now than she’d been before.

As if summoned by her anxious thoughts, her phone dinged. She glanced down to see
Plaza 6 p.m.
on her screen. The message was from Jack. She’d sensed it would be coming, so there was no reason for a text to give her a full-on panic attack.

But it did.

Never had two words struck so much fear into her. “I can’t do this,” she moaned into her drink. “I’m a fraud. A complete fraud.”

“Relax!” Georgie picked a cashew out of the snack bowl and flicked it at her across the bar. “I still don’t get it.”

Eva had known Georgie wouldn’t. When she’d texted her for help, Georgie had been eager, but surprised. Eva rarely went out for drinks or partied, not when there was so much work at Eva’s Organics to get done. But she simply didn’t have anyone else to turn to.

Nelson reached over to pat her hand, surprising her. “Sometimes I feel like a fraud, too. You think we all go around feeling mature and in control of every situation, twenty-four seven? Hell no, it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it.”

“Sure. I feel that way every time the rent is due,” Georgie said, rubbing Eva’s back consolingly. “But then I go and fill my refrigerator with vodka, fuck my personal trainer, and refuse to make my bed, and I remember being an adult is awesome as well as scary. I don’t have to answer to anyone else anymore. Neither do you, cupcake. So what’s the big deal? If Jack Bennett makes you this nervous, find another guy to fuck. End of stress.”

Eva took a deep breath and counted to three. Then she let it out. “I’m a virgin,” she muttered.

Her two friends leaned in closer, eyes wide. “What?” they asked in unison.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said quietly. “Ever. So I’m pretty sure any man would make me nervous.”

A weird silence ensued. When Eva looked up, she caught their reflection in the mirror behind the bottles of liquor. Eva in the center, flanked by two friends who looked like they’d just seen a unicorn walk into the bar. They were staring at each other over her slumped shoulders, silently prodding the other to speak first.

Eva rolled her eyes, feeling even more self-conscious.

“Well,” Nelson mumbled finally, “we’ve all been there.”

Georgie tossed her hair again and wrinkled her nose. “I think.” Then she laughed. “Yeah. Really. So the fuck what? That’s a good thing to most guys.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s a good thing, when you’re seventeen,” Eva said. “But when you’re twenty-six, it’s kind of lame, right?”

Nelson said, “Well...” and Georgie paused for a beat too long before uttering an irresolute, “Nah.”

Neither could make eye contact with her. The liars.

A sick feeling began to root in her stomach. She checked her phone. It was five o’clock. Only one hour and she’d be with him. With Jack. And he’d obviously want to you-know-what, which was her idea to begin with.
Oh, God.
The thought of him doing those things to her made her body quiver with a combination of need and panic.

“And, um, I felt him,” she rambled on. “Sunday night? And he’s really, I mean
really
big. Like whoa kind of big, so what if we can’t even do it? What if it won’t fit?”

Georgie’s mouth dropped. She whooped. “So, really? He’s big? How big? Like, give me actual measurements.”

Eva scowled at her. “I’m sorry, I left my ruler at home.”

“I mean, sorry if I don’t take your word for it.” She smiled and patted Eva’s hand condescendingly. “But you said it yourself. You’re a virgin. How do you even know what’s big?”

Eva conceded. “Well, the thought of that going between my legs makes me worry about the fate of my other internal organs. Is that a bad sign?”

They all laughed. Nelson said, “Honey. Look. It’s not a big deal. I’ve taken a ton of huge cock and I’m not even biologically built for the job. Your intestines will likely stay in the right place.”

“Right, and if not, it’s a good thing we have such a fantastic medical plan at our company,” Georgie joked, her smile fading as she inspected her friend. “But wow. You’re really scared about this, aren’t you?”

Eva shrugged. She didn’t want to be, no. She wanted to be as free and confident as Georgie. “It’s not just the sex part. I’ve known Jack since I was ten. I’ve always looked up to him. And I trust him. He’s one of the few people I know for sure would never hurt me. I just don’t want this to change things.”

Georgie’s face fell. “Change things? Sorry to break it to you, sweetie, but this’ll definitely change things. How can it not?”

Eva stared at her, confused, wondering what the virgin was missing this time.

“Notwithstanding the fact that you’ve known him most of your life. He’s going to be your first lover. You can’t help but get attached to your first.” Georgie sighed pensively. “Seriously. I’ve put a lot of distance between me and my first, and well...” She tapped the side of her head. “He’s still in here. He was nothing, a nobody, but I still remember his name and his favorite major league baseball team and that he tasted like maple syrup and that he scarred me for life by not calling me the next day when I felt for sure we’d get married and have pretty babies together.”

Georgie’s shoulders slumped and her gaze fell to her lap. She suddenly looked smaller. Nelson and Eva stared at her, hardly able to believe this was the same person.

Finally, Nelson said, “That was the most pathetic story I ever heard. Are those tears?”

Georgie squared her shoulders again, then grinned and slapped his arm. “Shut up, Fucker. You’re still crying over Gary with the wing-tips and you guys broke up two years ago.”

“Water under the bridge, my dear Georgina. Water under the bridge,” he announced, stirring his new martini. Then he said, “But I get where you’re coming from. I have a similar story about my first. It’s not easy to forget your first time.”

Georgie said, “So maybe…I don’t know. Maybe Jack isn’t the right guy for this? Do you really want to be forever emotionally tied to a guy who has sex for sport? Especially since you’re both in the city and will likely run into each other again and again. And again. And
again
. Because despite being a city of nine million people, New York delights in reuniting you with people you hate. I mean this could get messy.”

“I want to do this with someone I know,” Eva said, feeling indignant, “and like. He’s Antonio’s best friend, and he knows things about me and my family that no one else does. He’s the closest thing I have to family in this world. Don’t you get it? I’m already attached.”

“Oh.” Georgie took a sip of her martini through gritted teeth. “Ouch.”

“But not in a marry-him-and-have-his-babies way. I know Jack doesn’t operate that way. I know the parameters,” Eva quickly explained. She’d never,
ever
thought of romantic moonlit strolls with him, or of Jack confessing his undying love.

Jack Bennett? Never! No, the things she’d thought about him were likely the same things he thought about her. Sex. Pleasure. Nothing more.

She sat up straighter, strengthened by her thoughts. “I mean, isn’t it better to do it with someone like Jack than to get drunk and have a one-night stand with a guy I just met?”

Georgie nodded slowly. “Yes. I guess.” She sighed. “This is the problem with holding onto your V-card for so long, Eva. You start to think of it as part of your worth. You build up the act of losing it so much in your mind that it can never match up to your expectations, and then when you don’t have it to flash anymore, you feel worthless.”

“I don’t think of it as any part of my worth,” Eva said. “It’s a monkey on my back. I just want to lose it and pick up some much needed knowledge while I’m at it. I may be naïve, but trust me, I can separate sex from love just as well as he can.”

“Okay,” Georgie said. She gave Nelson a nudge. “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t fully support you in this. You don’t have anything to worry about. In fact, we probably have more faith in you than you do in yourself.”

Nelson had been scoping out the bartender with the blond crew cut across the way. He nodded. “You’ll do fine,” he said dismissively. “What I want is more details about this wondercock of Jack’s. Is it truly wondrous?”

“And cocky?” Georgie added. “You really think he’s going to attempt to stuff all ten inches of its exalted manly grandness into your virgin snatch tonight?”

Eva’s stomach lurched at her friends’ gleeful teasing. But maybe they were right—sex was supposed to be fun. She needed to just
relax
, goddammit. “I don’t know. He has his own lesson plan. But last time he hinted that he wanted to
you know
.” She blushed as she remembered the sexy way Jack had leaned in and whispered in her ear, and lowered her voice. “Do the deed.”

Georgie laughed. “You’ve never said the word
fuck
, have you?”

“I have,” Eva insisted. In fact, she’d dropped the f-bomb Sunday night. With Jack. When he’d been about to make her come like the world was ending.

He was changing her, making her more like him. So what if he had sex for sport? She knew that going in. And she needed lessons. He was a master. They were both business people, and this was a business arrangement. She could handle this.

“Fuck,” she said, lifting her nose into the air. “See? Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. We’re going to fuck tonight. Happy?”

Georgie applauded. Nelson beamed.

Eva checked her watch. It was time. Time to catch a cab to the Plaza.

She hugged her friends who wished her good luck, patting her on the back as if psyching her up for some sporting tournament. For a moment, she thought of Antonio and her father, and how proud they’d been when she’d lettered in volleyball her sophomore year, but she forced those thoughts away. Georgie was right. In order to go through with this, she couldn’t think of family for the rest of the night.

When she got outside, she headed down the block to hail a cab, practicing deep breathing, trying to calm herself as she imagined Jack, standing in the lobby, waiting for her.

Oh, who am I kidding? Jack never waits.

Still, it would be nice if he’d show her a different side than the playboy businessman everyone else saw. She knew she was just his student, but maybe someday she’d be able to teach
him
a thing or two.

T
he sixty-something
man in the black hat pressed closer to the brick wall of the building behind him, watching Eva Fiorini breeze out of a bar with a spring in her step.

Something about her was different.

He’d watched her grow up, almost always from afar. She bore no marks of the world of sin she’d been born into. She’d always been pretty, fresh-faced and pure, the kind who reeked of sunshine and rainbows and attended Mass every Sunday. Back when she was little, it had been hard to believe there was even a shred of the Fiorini evil running through her blood, or that she kept any dark secrets...

But now?

The past couple of weeks, something about her had changed.

He lit a cigarette as he watched her hail a cab, then slide into the backseat, leaving very little of her fabulously-shaped legs to the imagination. It wasn’t just the tighter, more revealing clothes she’d been wearing lately. Of course, he’d noticed those—what man wouldn’t?—but he could see it in smaller things, things only a close observer might notice.

Her posture, her walk, the way she flipped her hair…

She wasn’t a little girl anymore. Maybe she did have a bad side. And maybe she’d be willing to give up more than just those secrets.

He couldn’t wait to find out.