“But what?” She turns around to face me, her eyes hooded and sexy. “I’m not your type?”
I grunt out an embarrassed laugh. “God, listen, that is not the problem at all. You’re gorgeous. Really. And I am extremely flattered. If I were twenty years younger, you’d absolutely be my type. But-”
“But what?”
“Amber, you’re my daughter’s best friend.” I try to keep my tone even, caught between exasperation and arousal, regretting the decision to get to my feet because I’m sure my jeans aren’t doing a good job hiding just what she’s done to me. “You’re a young woman, you were a kid doing her homework in my office just a few years ago.”
“I had a crush on you back then,” Amber admits, her hands hidden behind her again. “When I was 17, I used to think… I used to wonder if you were a good kisser.”
I rub my forehead and wince. “Listen, you’re a beautiful girl, you really are. And if things were different-”
“If I were some girl in a bar that you just met and wasn’t friends with your daughter?” She takes a few steps towards my desk. “If I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me, would you take me home then?”
Her face is so determined, so set with desire, and she’s definitely not a girl anymore. She’s a woman making herintentions clear, letting me know what she wants, and that she wants me. But it’s wrong, so wrong.
“Laurie would kill me,” I say pathetically. “I mean, what would you do if one of your friends slept with your dad?”
Amber shrugs. “You’re just changing the subject now.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Amber, listen, I am too old for you. I am not the kind of guy you should be pursuing. You need to be dating young guys, who you can plan a future with, who-”
“Who fuck me missionary and ask me if I came?” Amber laughs harshly. “Who can’t find the clit and get pissed when you point it out to them? Who want head but won’t go down on you?Thoseare the guys I should be wasting my time on?”
I cross my arms over my chest and frown. “Is that what this is about? You… want someone with experience?”
“Maybe?” She juts out her chin, pursing those full, glossy lips. “Guys my age have no idea what they’re doing. And they’ll say anything to get you into bed, they’ll even say they love you. I don’t feel safe with them, and I want to know what that feels like. I deserve that, don’t I?”
I sigh, my shoulders dropping. “Yes, you do, of course you do. I’m so sorry you’ve been treated that way. But you have to know, I’m not the answer to that.”
“Why not?” A few more steps towards my desk, her gaze never once breaking from my face. “I’m not asking for anything serious. I don’t expect that. I just… I want to experience things with someone who’ll care for me, who’ll make me feel good. And I want to feel safe while I do it.”
“I… Look, again, I am flattered. But…” I huff out a breath. “What makes you think I’m going to be so different? That I’m going to be so much better in bed than these guys at college?”
Amber chews on her lip for a second, then gives me a shy smile. “Have you ever had any complaints?”
“That is really not a question to ask a guy,” I say with an embarrassed laugh. “We’re pretty terrible at self-awareness most of the time.”
“I heard Mella talking to my mom one night.” Her cheeks flush pink, and her eyes drop from mine. “They were a little tipsy, and Mella was complaining about her latest date, and how bad he’d been in bed.” Her eyes drift back up to meet mine, and the desire that’s lighting them heats my blood. “She said, ‘When am I ever going to meet someone who can fuck half as good as Theo could?’”
Well, nowthathas my ego swelling to a point that should be humiliating. My face is hot and I rub the back of my neck with a strained laugh. “Oh. I see.”
“I trust you. I think you’re a good man, and a sweet guy, and you’re hot, and…” Amber’s shoulders jerk in a small shrug. “No one has to know. Laurie included. Nothing has to change.”
“I think sex can change a lot, don’t you?”
“Not if we don’t let it.” Amber’s mouth twitches into a soft smile. “The fact you’re talking this in circles tells me you’re thinking about it.”
“Listen, a pretty girl in my office with no panties on, yeah, that’s kind of tempting.”
“Then just… Give in.” She shrugs with a smile. “It’s just sex. Just two people, who want to spend a weekend together, and then we go back to our lives Monday morning.”
I regard her face with a heavy breath. This is wrong Her father would fucking murder me if he ever found out I’d touched his daughter. I’ve played golf with him, I’ve drunk beers in this man’s yard while our kids danced to too-loud music. We’ve commiserated about our kids heading to college. We’ve sworn that any man who hurts our little girls would fucking pay.
And now I’m looking at Amber, considering just how bad it would be to peel those clothes off her and spend the weekend showing her what a man of my age, with my experience, can do.
Fuck it.
“We don’t tell anyone,” I say, and Amber’s mouth shifts as she suppresses a smile. “This is just about us.”
