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  Simon’s eyes glittered as he took a good look at her. She was stretched out on the couch, her bare feet propped on the coffee table, one arm under her head, the other trailing off the couch, her glass dangling from her fingers.

  “What?” she asked when all he did was stare.

  “It’s the strangest thing but the more I learn about you, the sexier you are.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “Was that a compliment?”

  “It most certainly was,” Georgina purred, her body warming under both his gaze and his words. “I have always felt that a person must be sexual in both mind and body, one without the other is…

  oh, not shallow but…” Georgina raised her glass to her lips as she struggled for the words.

  “Half-assed?” Simon asked.

  “Not how I would have put it but you’re right,” Georgina murmured, setting her glass on the floor as a gentle sweep of heat rolled over her body. “Come here,” she whispered, bravely crook-ing one finger at him.

  Simon grinned, a wicked slide of lips over teeth that kicked Georgina’s pulse up another notch. “What’s the magic word?”

  “Now,” Georgina drawled, trailing the tips of her fingers down between her breasts, arching a little, enjoying the sensation, even through the linen of her dress.

  Simon rolled his eyes, even as he pushed away from the shelves.

  “We’ve really got to do something about your manners.”

  “And you’re going to teach me?” Georgina asked, licking her lips as he settled down at the other end of the couch, one arm draped over the back of the couch, legs sprawled open, suggestive, daring her to keep her gaze on his eyes rather than dipping down between his thighs.

  “Now there’s an idea,” Simon said, narrowing his black eyes at her until she felt a small flutter of unease. “Me teaching you. There are quite a few things I wouldn’t mind showing you the finer points of.”

  “Now, Simon,” she soothed, reaching out to smooth just the tips of her fingers over the back of his hand. With a quick flip of his wrist, Simon snagged her hand in his, smiling at her gasp.

  “The way I see it,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her palm.

  “What we have here is one helluva of a learning opportunity.

  You’ve got an impressively filthy mind but very little hands-on experience.” Simon paused.

  Georgina nodded. No use lying.

  “I, on the other hand, have the experience but my mental game is for shit.”

  It was Georgina’s turn to roll her eyes. “Liar.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You would.”

  Simon snickered. “Damn but playing with you is fun.”

  Georgina blushed with pleasure.

  “When you blush like that, it reminds me of what you look like when you’re excited, all pink and pretty, soft…” he murmured the last word, his thumb rubbing the delicate skin at the inside of her wrist. He paused, his gaze tracing the movement of his thumb.

  “Before we go any further, I want to make something between us very clear.”

  This is where he tells you not to get attached, not to expect anything past Monday morning.

  Georgina braced herself accordingly and thus was floored when he said, “I’ve never met anyone like you and, if I screw up, if I do something you don’t like, you have to tell me. No means no and stop means stop. No gray area, no safe-words, none of that, okay?”

  Georgina let out the breath she’d been holding on a sigh that sounded perilously close to relief. “Okay and thank you, it hadn’t occurred to me to…”

  Simon’s grin returned as he looked into her eyes. “See, a learning opportunity. I teach you, you teach me.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve got to learn from me.”

  “You have no idea…” he murmured, pulling her towards him.

  Simon Says: Chapter 5

  I am ever hopeful that a man will turn out to be more than he appears. Unfortunately, I have yet to have that hope fulfilled.

  —Abigail Scott

  Simon slid down until he was stretched out on his back, his head resting comfortably on the arm of the couch. He slowly brought Georgina down with him as he went, pulling her over him, until her hips were cradled between his thighs, his fingers were sifting through her hair and they were kissing, gently, both of them taking the time to savor the other.

  He removed her dress with a minimum of fuss. She helped him off with his t-shirt, then got to her knees and watched as he took off his jeans. He slid his bare legs between her thighs, urging her back towards him, his hands sure and strong on her body, until she was straddling him, waiting, watching as he took his time opening a condom packet then slowly rolled the latex over his erection.

  And as she watched, Georgina wondered why some people said that stopping to put on a condom killed the mood. For her, the wait added a whole different level of anticipation. It was an opportunity to once again decide that yes, she wanted this man, wanted what was going to happen between them.

  It was also an opportunity to watch Simon as he handled

  himself, how he enjoyed the feel of his hands on his cock as he smoothed the latex by thrusting into his own fist. He looked up at her as he did it, his eyes narrowed, his color heightened. He tightened his fist once around the base of his cock, the full head pulsed, the tracery of veins bulged, just a little, just enough to let her see that he was enjoying this.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispered.

  Georgina looked at him lying beneath her, his lips slightly parted, tongue pressing against the backs of his bottom teeth, his neck corded with tension, the black lines of his tattoo like vines, swirling down his arms, taut bronze skin, glimmering with a thin sheen of sweat…

  “You are the single most beautiful man I have ever seen,” she whispered, feeling once again that glorious freedom to say what she was thinking without fear that he would censure her.

  Simon shifted beneath her, one hand still wrapped around his cock, the other moving to her hip, helping her as she positioned herself over him, never once wincing or laughing at her unsure movements. How awkward she must seem to someone like him,

  someone so used to this complicated dance of aligning bodies for pleasure… and yet, meeting his eyes, she saw only a dark reflection of her own need.

  “You with me?” he asked, just as she felt the blunt tip of his cock nudging her moist opening.

  “All along the way,” she replied, unable to hold back a dreamy smile as she slowly sank onto him, accepting him into her body without reservation or inhibition. “I love the way this feels,” she whispered once he was fully seated within her. “The stretch, even that little hitch of pain at the outset, all of it…”

  She let her voice trail off. Sensation took over and she could no longer put feeling into words. Swiveling her hips, she took him deep, beginning a slow, languid pace that seemed to match the long, late afternoon shadows stretching across the floor. The distant hum and whisper of the ocean as it crept up the beach then receded acted as a metronome to her movements, taking him deep then slowly receding, only to come back to him, again and again, until she was lost in a haze of pleasure.

  Her head felt heavy so she let it drop back, felt the ends of her hair tickling her back. His hands cupped her hips but he didn’t try to guide her as she rode him, her pace increasing as her blood rushed through her veins. His hands tightened and he groaned.

  “Are you with me?” she asked, teasing him, flexing her hips as she felt her body tighten up. Georgina opened herself to it, ready for a gentle slide into oblivion.

  Simon had other plans.

  He bucked under her, driving deep, deeper than she had gone and her orgasm coalesced into a blinding flash, harsher than she had expected, radiating out then coming back hard as he pulled her down over him. His mouth latched onto her breast and, with three hard upward thrusts, he sent her spinning into another orgasm, richer and darker than
the first.

  When she came back to herself, she was breathing so hard she would have been embarrassed if he didn’t sound just as winded as she did.

  “Christ, Georgina. This gets any better and I’ll be in the morgue before Monday,” Simon muttered.

  Laughing, she sat up and blew her hair out of her face. There followed another awkward sex moment—climbing off him while he held the condom in place. At one point, her foot slipped and she almost fell over onto the coffee table.

  “I never put the awkward, undignified stuff in my stories,” she muttered with a quick hop and skip that left her standing at the end of the couch, wild haired and blushing.

  “You’re just new at this,” Simon said with a teasing grin. He swung his feet onto the floor, stood up, took two steps then tripped over a book. Georgina giggled as Simon cursed his way to the bathroom to get rid of the condom.

  Walking over to the bed, Georgina whisked the comforter off of it, like a magician doing the tablecloth trick, leaving the pillows undisturbed on the bare mattress. Wrapping it around her, she walked over to one of the French doors and let herself out into the early evening.

  The sun had set not long ago, the moon had yet to rise, allowing sea and sky a brief opportunity to match their myriad shades of blue, neatly obliterating the line of the horizon in the process.

  As she let go of her instinctual search for the horizon and simply admired the view, Georgina felt as if she was being slowly drawn out across the surface of the ocean, as if she was the sky, absorb-ing the motion of the waves, dipping into the valleys of water then rising up on the crests.

  And, just for an instant, Georgina felt a part of that ancient, unbroken connection.

  “Gorgeous,” she whispered, wondering why she had never realized that sky and sea didn’t meet only at the horizon, but everywhere and all at once in a seamless, ongoing dance of give and take.

  “What are you doing out here?” Simon asked.

  Georgina turned to see him, shivering a little in the tangy breeze. He had his jeans back on but hadn’t bothered with a shirt.

  “I never realized…” she began, then paused and felt foolish.

  “You never realized what?” he prompted, moving to stand next to her at the rail.

  “That the sea and sky don’t meet only at the horizon but all along the way.”

  “I never thought about it that way,” Simon said, his eyes track-ing across the view, from left to right then back again, his mouth turned down in a slight frown.

  “Me neither,” she whispered, watching him until his perusal of the view became easier, less linear. She was suddenly very glad that he was there to share this new view with, glad that he was genuinely interested in what she was showing him. Georgina couldn’t remember a time when she had felt so free to say and do whatever she felt in front of a man. She was usually so careful, scared that she would let it slip that she wasn’t what she appeared to be. But with Simon, she didn’t have to pretend.

  Georgina felt a burst of giddy pleasure at that thought. And then the voice of reason reared its practical head.

  Just remember, this ends on Monday.

  ***

  All along the way, Simon thought, rolling the words around in his head.

  Georgina had said that earlier when he had asked if she was with him. But he didn’t mention that. It was too soon to start spouting off about how he felt that they were like the ocean and the sky, meeting everywhere and all along the way. How he felt that she fit him in places he had thought were too messy and difficult to ever find a good, lasting fit.

  Instead he asked if she was hungry.

  “Starved.”

  Simon went inside and dialed Valerie’s cell phone number, hoping she hadn’t turned it off for the night.

  “Someone had better be dead,” Valerie growled.

  “I need dinner for two,” Simon began.

  “Call a restaurant, I’m busy.”

  “Up in the attic for me and George,” Simon finished.

  Silence, then Valerie hissed, “Hey, Roger… get off me… I know you’re close but I need you to get lost for awhile.” Simon heard a man groan then Valerie said, “Okay, I’ll have it sent up as soon as I can.”

  Simon hated to interrupt Valerie’s fun. He knew he could have called down to the kitchen directly but if he had done that, it would have been all over the party in under three minutes that Abigail Scott was entertaining Simon Says up in the attic. It wasn’t anyone’s business but theirs what was going on up here, and Valerie could be counted on to keep the staff from gossiping.

  “Thanks, Valerie,” Simon said.

  “You’re welcome, but Simon.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hurt her and I will destroy you.”

  Simon hung up before he could say what he was thinking.

  Namely, that if he screwed this up, the person that would end up hurt would be him.

  ***

  If someone ever asked her what she had had for dinner that

  night, Georgina honestly wouldn’t have been able to remember.

  What she would remember, possibly for the rest of her life, was the way Simon had looked sitting across from her (bare-chested, per her request) smiling and laughing as he told her about what it had been like growing up with six brothers in a three bedroom house in Encino.

  “Madhouse does not even begin to describe it,” he said. “There was never enough of anything to go around. I got into more fist-fights with my brothers over things like who got the last pork chop.

  Hell, I didn’t own a brand-new pair of jeans until the summer I was thirteen. I got a job clearing vacant lots with two of my brothers, and the first thing we did when we got paid was go out and buy clothes that no one else had worn.”

  “Were you the youngest?” Georgina asked, amazed at his ability to talk easily about a childhood most people would have railed against.

  “I should have been so lucky. I’m fourth in line for the throne,”

  Simon joked. “Smack in the middle.”

  “I don’t have any siblings,” Georgina said with a sigh. “I remember long, lonely summer days when none of my friends could play. I’ve always believed that was when I developed my love of books. A book is never too busy to play with you.”

  “Well, the next time you get bored, call me and I’ll send a couple of my brothers over. And don’t worry about returning them, I’ve got plenty to spare.”

  Georgina laughed, not believing him for a moment. He might be too much of a guy to say it but he loved his brothers. It was there in the way he talked about them, their wives and the ever increasing number of nieces and nephews they were in the process of providing him with. “You’d fight tooth and nail if anyone tried to take one of your brothers away.”

  “Not when I was thirteen.”

  “Well, despite what that column of yours says, you’re a grown-up now.”

  Simon fiddled with his fork for a few seconds then said, “About the column. I… that is, my editor has been all over me to broaden my professional horizons.”

  Georgina sat back, surprised. “Really? I thought Simon Says was a cash cow for any paper that carried it.”

  “Oh, it is but my editor Lillian says, and I’m quoting here, that I’m wasting my talent on titillating the underdeveloped minds of a pack of slavering morons, bless their hearts.”

  Georgina laughed at Simon’s impersonation of his editor.

  “Lillian’s from Tennessee, and it’s good form to tack ‘bless their heart’ on to the end of an insult. I’ve probably had my heart blessed more than any man in America, thanks to Lillian.” Simon paused then, in a much more serious tone, said, “The thing is, I don’t know if it’ll fly, going whole hog into politics when all I’m known for is party-girls and organized sports.”

  “Nonsense, there’s room in every career for growth. Maybe

  your editor thinks your readers are ready to broaden their own horizons and doesn’t want them abandoning the paper
when they get tired of your shenanigans.”

  “Shenanigans?” Simon asked.

  Georgina demurred from further comment by changing the

  direction of the subject. “Why politics? Why not go to the sports page?”

  Simon shifted in his chair then muttered something she didn’t catch.

  “Again?”

  “I have degrees in both political science and journalism.”

  Georgina dropped her fork.

  “What?” Simon asked, thrusting his chin out.

  “Nothing, I just…I mean it never occurred to me that someone like you…”

  “Someone like me what?” Simon asked, his voice dropping an octave.

  Georgina realized that she was on the verge of insulting him and that was the absolute last thing she wanted to do. Suddenly, struck by inspiration, she said, “It’s sort of like when you found out that I’m Abigail Scott. You know, mousy little librarian writes porn.

  Total shocker.”

  Simon snorted, shoved his chair back and stood. “Here’s the difference, my little mouse. Finding out that you write porn was a total turn-on whereas finding out that brain-dead Simon Says has two college degrees that didn’t arrive in the mail from ‘How to be a Misogynistic Pig University’ is the shocker.”

  Georgina watched helplessly as Simon paced over to the French doors. He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, the black lines of his tattoo jumping as he tensed his arms and set his shoulders.

  “Okay, I am shocked. I made assumptions about you based

  solely on a…a character you’ve created and I for one should know better, what with Abby hanging over my head. Please don’t be mad,” she said, walking over to stand next to him.

  He just continued staring out at the ocean, his mouth turned down in an angry frown.

  “What can I do to make it up to you?” she asked, daring to loop her arm through his.

  Simon glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

  “Anything,” Georgina said, eager to dispel the tension between them. “Just ask and it’s yours.”

  “Anything?” Simon asked, his mouth hitching up at the corners in a dangerous grin.