THE CRITIC (16 page)

“I don’t mean his face or his chest. I mean have you ever helped a man to achieve an arousal, have you brought him to orgasm with your beautiful fingers?” he asked, playing with her fingers.

The fear was creeping back into her eyes. “Have you ever used those beautiful soft lips of yours and made a man see heaven?” To his surprise Toreas laughed.

“How do you know whether I could make a man see heaven?”

“Because you have done nothing but run from me and already I’m so damn near heaven I could burst. I want you.”

“But, Jared…”

“I know.”

“Did you mean it? If I ask, you’ll stop at any point?”

“Oh yes, but if I do my job correctly you won’t say stop.”

“Your job?”

“Let me tutor you.”

Toreas couldn’t help being a little disappointed. So he wanted to tutor her, did he? His hand was sliding underneath her blouse, his fingers cool and making her shiver. Toreas felt wetness pooling between her thighs and wondered if it were truly the cool touch or the hot fever Jared produced in her body. Her breath hitched and she squirmed. What she wanted to do was throw off all her clothes and attack Jared, but she didn’t want to appear too eager. Toreas laughed softly in embarrassment.

“Are you laughing at my efforts?” Jared asked.

“I’m laughing that you’re pretending this is for either of our books.”

“Oh, you think I’m lying, Toreas? I do plan to write about this. Now if you don’t want to have this experience then let me know.” He pretended to pull away. “But I bet it will make you a better writer.”

“What about my imagination?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” Before Toreas could stop him he’d lifted up her blouse and was blowing kisses on her abdomen a moment before his tongue dipped deep inside her belly button and a moan filled with lust escaped her pretty mouth. “So tell me, Toreas, does your imagination compare with this? Would you like for me to stop?”

Stop?
Was the man kidding
. “No, Jared, don’t stop,” Toreas said, feeling a physical ache for the first time in her entire life. She was in need of the things this man was doing to her. Jared was making her feel things she’d never felt and she wanted more.

A snap of her pants brought her out of her reverie. “Jared, we agreed.”

“We agreed that when you wanted me to stop, you would tell me and I would do it. Do you want me to stop so soon?”

His voice dropped several octaves. “Toreas, please,” he moaned. “I just want to touch you. Listen,” he said, trying hard to talk. “I need help with my scene too. Can’t you help me?”  He saw her lips curl into a smile. She didn’t believe it, but she wanted a way out of saying no, a way to soothe her conscience and he’d just handed it to her on a silver platter.

“Okay, if you really need my help.”

Her voice was husky, filled with desire and lust. Jared dared to glance at her. Her b
rown eyes were alive with fire.

Oh God
, he thought, how had this delicious treasure been overlooked? How could any man have had her and not allowed her to enjoy it.
A damn shame
, he thought, then smiled. But the shame of the man who’d taken Toreas’s virginity and hadn’t known what to do with it was Jared’s good fortune. He knew exactly with to do with Toreas and her desires.

Make him stop? Hell no
, Jared thought. She would be begging for more and so would he. He was already imagining being buried deep inside her.  A shiver claimed him and he rocked his erection against the side of Toreas’s leg. He bit his lips to retain control. His hand slid inside the band of Toreas’s jeans and down a coupled of inches. She refused to budge.

“Toreas, you need to lift your hips so I can take your pants off.”

“I’m not taking my pants off.”

“Then how am I going to give you what I have for you?”

“I’m not taking my pants off.”

Jared leaned on an elbow and looked at her. “Okay, but can we pull them down a little more? There is so much of you I want to see. I want to see what you’re hiding in the vee of your thighs. I want to see your panties. Are they cotton, Toreas?  Is that the reason you don’t want me to see them? Are they some god-awful thrift store seconds?”

He watched while her toasty brown skin reddened and she became angry.

“My underwear is my business.” Toreas said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“But it’s cotton, isn’t it?”

“Jared, let’s stop.”

“I’m sorry, I like cotton. My briefs are the tighty-whities. They’re cotton so I shouldn’t talk. Would you like me to show you what I’m wearing?”

Before Toreas could answer Jared sprang from the bed and took off his pants. He smiled proudly at the way his underwear tented. And then some vague knowing pulled at him and had him thinking, O
h Oh
.
Think quick, Jared, you’re going to lose her.
“I’m sorry about that, Toreas, you have that effect me, but it’s nothing to worry about.” He swallowed. She wasn’t buying. She was closing her eyes, determined to end this game, but he hoped not yet. There were so many things Jared had to show her.

Toreas felt as though she were drowning. She was doing things with Jared she’d never done with her two boyfriends and Jared wasn’t a boyfriend. He wasn’t even a date or a one night stand. Heck, she didn’t know what he was, only that she was falling in love with him. That wasn’t right. She wasn’t falling, she was already there. Toreas loved the way they were together when they were alone. She was beginning to trust him with her feelings, her work…now her body. She shivered. He was talking dirty to her and prude that she was, she hoped to God he never stopped.

Toreas stared at Jared. His underwear was tented. She knew she should stop gawking but couldn’t. She’d had sex a total of eleven and a half times. Four times with the guy she’d given her virginity to at the age of twenty-four, just to see if it was worth all the fuss. It wasn’t. After the fourth try neither of them had been satisfied. She’d done the deed, but she’d refused to allow him to touch her in her private area. In fact, she’d thought he was downright nasty, especially when he expected her to put her mouth on him. Toreas had thought good riddance and he’d come right out and said it.

Then there was Fred two years later. At least they’d had a relationship of sorts. One of her brothers had set them up. How they’d ever had sex in the first place was still a mystery. It was after that last half time, the one where Fred was done before he’d even entered her, that he’d proposed and they’d skipped their happy time behinds to the courthouse. It was at the courthouse that some sense came to Toreas. She didn’t want to spend a lifetime of half getting there. She didn’t care if her brothers kicked her behind and Fred’s. Toreas had half suspected that Fred’s reason for asking her to marry him was so as not to get his butt kicked by her brothers. Even if it wasn’t the reason, her running away like an imbecile from the courthouse gave Fred his out on a silver platter. Since they were both still alive, it was safe to say Fred had not blabbed.

In the eleven and a half times she’d had sex it had been in the dark so no, Toreas had never seen anyone standing there with their underwear tented. It had been three years since Fred.

Toreas wasn’t sure if her natural urges had finally kicked in, urges she’d thought she didn’t have. Or maybe it was Jared, or that since she’d begun trying to write romance she’d suddenly turned slutty.

“Toreas, what’s wrong?”

Toreas blinked and looked at Jared. What the heck did he think he was doing? He was moving forward much too fast. This had started out as a game, and now he’d turned it into something more. Who the heck did he think she was?

“Put your pants back on.”

“I…I…”

“I…I…nothing, put your pants back on.”

“I only took them off so you could see my underwear, its cotton,” Jared finished lamely.

“I don’t care what it is, put your pants back on.” She reached for the pillow behind her head and threw it at him. “What did you think we were doing here, Jared?”

“We were having fun,” he said, hopping on one foot as he dodged another pillow. “I’ll have to tell you, Toreas, this is definitely not how to write a love scene.”

“You’re crazy. Get out of my bedroom now,” Toreas said, then burst out laughing. “Jared, you’re too much.” He turned toward her and she hopped quickly from the bed. “Thanks for the lesson.”

“You’re welcome,” Jared groaned, wishing he’d waited a little longer, not pushed so quickly. He took in the image Toreas projected as she marched back into the safety of her living room. One of these days he would see what she kept hidden behind all of the dowdy clothes.

***

Fire ran rampant through her veins and she breathed as though each breath would be her last. She was falling in love with him and he was clueless. What did one do with a clueless man, she wondered?

Jared smiled a little as he laid Toreas’s paper on the table. “That’s very good, Toreas, a lot better than the stuff you wrote a couple of months ago. Do you want to read mine?” he asked and handed over his paper. For a moment she hesitated and Jared wondered if she would take the paper. He found himself suddenly hoping that she would.

Strawberries, that’s what she smelled like, fresh luscious strawberries. He’d had a taste of her lips and could still taste her on his tongue. He wondered what would happen when she let down her defenses, when he moved over her body the way that he wanted. He wondered if all of her tasted like fresh strawberries. He was taking it slow, waiting for permission. It had begun as a game but now it was much more. He wondered if she knew he was falling for her. He wondered if he told her if she’d think it was a line.

Jared watched Toreas as she read and saw the moment she knew it was about her. Her skin warmed with the heat of her embarrassment and she swiped at her luscious lips. He’d be willing to bet liquid was pooling in her nether regions. What he wouldn’t give to find out. But he’d learned his lesson. He would take it slower, he’d wait until she was ready to admit that things had changed.

“Toreas,” Jared called softly and waited for her to turn toward him. He saw the desire in her eyes, the hope that flared and died only to be replaced by fear. She still didn’t trust him or his motives. He decided to steer them both to safer ground. “How was it?” he asked.

“I liked it very much. I think you show a lot of promise.” Toreas looked down. “Your scene is a lot better than mine. Maybe we should change places. Maybe I should become the critic.”

“Are you going to enter the contest?” Jared asked, gazing tenderly at her, not wanting to revisit the days of him tearing into her group. Not wanting her to ask about his job.

“I’m not ready, Jared. Besides, that’s fifty bucks I don’t have.”

“If that’s the only thing stopping you…” He reached for his wallet.”

For the first time in a month Toreas’s head became crowded with voices.  The choir was singing its head off.

“Don’t, Jared.” She wondered how he could not know a Baptist girl taking money from a man she wasn’t married to was practically a mortal sin.  

He was staring at her in that way he had that told her he was laughing at her.  She knew he thought her a prude in ugly clothing.  A prude he didn’t mind kissing because he was forced into it by their nearness, but a prude he wasn’t attracted to. 

She looked away from him.  He had a way of making her divulge secrets about herself. The man already knew more about her feelings than she’d ever intended.

She sighed loudly.  “If I can finish my book in time, I’ll enter.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I keep my word.”  She wished she had said that differently.  Okay, so she couldn’t blame him for not finding her attractive in oversized thrift store apparel and now she was back to attacking his morals.

She noticed he sank back into the chair before he spoke. “Honesty’s a big deal with you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Toreas answered without hesitation.  “Shouldn’t it be?”

“Well, I was wondering, you say you only kiss me to help you with a scene, I say you’re lying.  I say your feelings for me have changed into something else.”

“We weren’t talking about my feelings, Jared.”

“No, we were talking about honesty. Tell me something. Is it okay for you to lie to me, but I’m not to lie to you?” He stood then.

“I haven’t lied to you, Jared.”

“You’re lying now.”

Toreas pushed her behind into the cushion of the couch. Jared was towering over her. His nearness was making her feel vulnerable. “Fair warning, Jared, Kelle taught me several new moves.”

He remained where he was for several seconds longer, then walked away. “I think I should say good night.”

He walked over the threshold before turning around.  “Just so you know this, Ms. Rose, even with your hideous clothes, I find you very attractive. In fact, I think you’re beautiful.”

Then Jared was gone, leaving Toreas to doubt the sincerity of his words. Just because he said he found her attractive didn’t mean he was attracted to her.

He was right about one thing: She
was
being a hypocrite.  She was more than attracted to him. Toreas wondered why it was so hard for her to just have told him that she didn’t want him to stop coming over for dinner.