Page 35 of Conception
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple, Knox. You’re crazed? You just gotta make sure she’s feeling the same way. So take a step back. Reel it in just a little bit, but at the same time, give just a little bit more at the end of every night. A taste, a tease, just enough to keep her wantin’ more.”
“That makes no sense. She’s not a damn fish.”
“Of course it wouldn’t make sense to you. You’ve never had to seduce a woman before.”
“And this is how you seduced Maria?”
His answering grin told me, yeah, he did just that. “And she’ll be wearing my ring by the end of the summer. Trust me on this. It’ll drive her insane and then, when you finally get into bed, you’ll explode.”
“Not sure that’s what I’m going for, buddy,” I told him.
“You know what I mean. Sure, you could’ve had her tonight. You could tomorrow. Give it a week? It’ll be better than anything you could’ve expected.”
“I’ve been with one woman my entire life. There’s no offense to Gwen, but I’m fairly sure my sex life can only go up from here, whether I wait a week or break the seal tomorrow.”
“I still can’t believe you haven’t been with anyone since her.”
Whether I’d heard this once in the past four months or one hundred times, it’s too fucking many. “I still can’t believe I fucking told you that.”
He held his drink up in a mock cheer. “Bourbon: Mother Nature’s truth serum.”
“Clay, what the hell have I been doing for the past three years?”
He started ticking things off on his fingers. “Work. School. Work. Golf. Work. Gym. School. Help Mom’s charities. Did I say work?”
“Exactly. I didn’t have time to go out and find anyone. Not that I didn’t want to. But we have plans for the business, and I’ve been working my ass off to make those dreams come true. Women will come later.”
“Or now, since Mom exiled you to this place. Gotta say I’m not surprised you’re already laser focused on the first girl you saw.”
I puffed my cigar before slowly releasing the aromatic smoke. “Think Mom still would’ve sent me here if she’d anticipated my meeting a woman on the first day, even knowing it could only be for a fling?”
Clay leaned forward in his chair, bringing his forearms to his knees, his expression pensive as he mulled it over. “I think dear old Mom would’ve pushed you into Amelia’s arms if for nothing else than to prove to you there’s more to life than work.”
He was right, but I wouldn’t tell him that.
“Well, whatever it was,” I said, “Mom got her wish. Looks like three months of fixing up this place, trying to escape the heat, and spending time with Amelia.”
“Doesn’t sound like too bad of a gig, Knox,” Clay told me.
“Nope. Sure as hell doesn’t.”
Talk, as it usually does when we’re together and drinking, turned from women to work while we finished our drinks and cigars. There was just something about being out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but moonlight and the distant crashing of the water from the lake to make talking shop so damn enjoyable. Hell, Clay and I could do that in the middle of anything.
That night was different though. We didn’t discuss how we wanted to change the company—we discussed how we wanted to change ourselves along with it. Did he gush about Maria most of the time? Yeah. And for once, I didn’t mind.
What can I say? Booze.
And unfortunately for me, that night was almost a week ago and I still haven’t progressed much with Amelia. Well, not physically. Sure, we’ve spent nearly every waking moment together—and a couple of them sleeping thanks to long days in the summer heat. Never alone. Always with Clay, Sunny, and the rest of the gang. Yet, even on the nights we steal away and stay in, cuddled on the couch while watching old movies, we never do anything other than some very heavy making out—necking as Mom would embarrassingly call it. And every night, as much as it pains me, I put her into bed, give her a kiss goodnight, and go home to Clay’s approving stare.
Like I said: idiot.
He may approve of my going slow; I sure as hell don’t know how I’m managing. I’m a loaded bottle of pent-up frustration that’s in danger of detonating at any given moment.
I have no idea how I’ve kept my cool—and I don’t just mean in this heat wave. The resistance is killing me, and with each night that passes, every inch Amelia presses up closer against me, I can tell it’s killing her, too. So maybe my brother isn’t such a total idiot, but I’ve reached my limit. I have to do something. I can’t lie with her in my arms for one more night with her pert little ass teasing my groin, my hand on her belly when it wants to be on her breast, without doing something about it.
And hell, it’s about time.
