Egomaniac
: Chapter 18

“Jesus Christ!” Emerie was just behind the front door to the office when I whipped it open. If she’d taken another step, I probably would’ve slammed her in the face.

She clutched at her chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Good. You’re still here.”

“I was just getting ready to leave. What’s the matter? Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. But I’m taking you out for your birthday.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t. But I want to.”

She squinted. “I thought you had company.”

“Got rid of her.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you ditch your date?” The confusion on her face melted as a realization of some sort seemed to hit her. “Oh.”

My brows drew down. “Oh what?”

“You’re done with your date.”

“I was far from done,” I grumbled, then nodded my head toward the street. “Come on. You deserve a nice night out on your birthday. That dumb putz has no idea what he’s missing. Let’s go get shitfaced.”

She smiled from ear to ear. “That sounds awesome.”

“I’m never getting my balls in.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight. You haven’t been laid in so long, you forgot it’s not the balls that go inside.” I smirked at Emerie as the five ball rolled into the left corner pocket. It was our first game of pool, and I’d just banked in my fifth ball in a row. She was right. I might clear the table before she chalked up her stick.

She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten laid?”

“You’re wound a little tight.”

I expected her to go off on me, but instead she surprised me. Literally. Just as I was about to take my sixth shot, she yelled, “Watch it!” My hand veered mid-shot, and the two ball landed nowhere near the pocket I’d intended.

She sported a smug smile, all proud of herself.

“Is that how we’re going to play this?”

“What? I’m so uptight, I can’t help myself. Sometimes words get bottled up, and they just pop out of my mouth like a cork from champagne.”

“Your shot.” I extended my hand toward the felt. As she positioned herself, I rounded the table, moving closer until I stood directly behind her. She attempted to pretend it didn’t bother her, but eventually she turned around.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m watching you take the shot.”

“From behind?”

I grinned. “It gives me the best view.”

“Go back to where you were standing.” She waved her hand to the other side of the pool table. “I think your view is clearer from over there.”

She bent again, attempting to line up her shot. My eyes dropped to her amazing ass. “That depends on what I’m looking at.”

When she finally took the shot, her cue scraped along the felt and completely missed the ball.

“I thought you knew how to play.”

“I do.”

“Doesn’t look that way.”

“You’re making me nervous standing behind me.”

I leaned down next to her and showed her how to position her hand to cradle the stick so it would at least be easier to connect with the ball. After she got the hang of it, I went back to the other side of the table. My intentions that time had been truly altruistic—at least until her shirt gapped open, and I was staring straight down at her tits.

I couldn’t bring myself to move. She must have been wearing one of those bras that only holds half a breast, because all I could see were two perfectly round globes of luscious, creamy skin with just a hint of something black and lacy.

Great tits to go with a spectacular ass.

I brought my beer to my lips as I waited for her to take her shot, but kept right on gawking over the bottle as I took a long draw. The only thing that eventually distracted me was watching her slide the stick back and forth between her fingers.

Then I imagined my cock was the stick.

Forcing my eyes shut as she finally took her shot, I emptied the contents of my Stella. Emerie managed to connect with the ball this time, only she sank one of my balls instead of her own. She was so excited, I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

“Does that mean I go again?”

“Sure does. I’m gonna grab another beer. You want one?”

“Yes, but not another beer. They make me too full.”

“Okay? What do you want?”

“Surprise me. I’ll drink whatever you give me.”

I definitely needed to walk away for a minute.

The line at the bar was two deep, but I was a regular here. Roman and I met at Fat Cat every weekend to play pool and talk shop. So when Tiny—the bartender who had to be nearly seven feet tall—saw me, he took my order ahead of most people.

“I’ll take another Stella and one of those.” I pointed to a margarita.

Tiny cracked a smile. “Roman getting in touch with his feminine side tonight?”

“Nah. He’s probably home getting in touch with himself. I’m here with…” What the hell was she? She wasn’t a date. Wasn’t a co-worker even though we worked in the same office. I couldn’t even call her an employee. Searching for a word, I settled on the simplest one: “a woman.”

Emerie was most definitely a woman.

While I waited, I thought about the fact that I’d never once even considered taking a date here—again, not that tonight was a date. But this was the kind of place you came to hang out and be yourself. Yet I hadn’t thought twice about bringing Emerie here. It was nice to spend time with a woman who I knew would be comfortable in an underground pool hall slash dive bar. It was a bonus that she was sexy as shit.

I was only gone a few minutes, but when I returned to the pool table, there was a guy talking to Emerie. A pang of good ol’ male jealousy sprang to life inside of me. Resisting the urge to tell him to beat it, I opted to make the guy feel uncomfortable until he slithered away.

I walked up and stood next to Emerie. Handing her the drink as I looked at the snake, I said, “Here you go. Who’s your friend?”

“This is Will. He offered to show me some pointers.”

“Oh yeah?”

Will was holding a drink in his left hand. The finger he’d slipped his wedding ring off of still had the indent in it. I waited until our eyes locked, then I let mine lead his down to his finger. “We have the table for another twenty minutes. You and your wife want next game when we’re finished?”

Nothing like a little silent man-to-man conversation.

He nodded to the bar. “Maybe another time. My friends are waiting for me.”

Nice talking to you, Will.

After that, Emerie and I finished our game and went to sit at a table in a quieter area of the bar. She drank that first margarita pretty quick, and the waitress had just delivered a second. Her mood had changed from down about the asshole with a bowtie to alcohol-assisted upbeat.

“So what was your favorite birthday present you ever received?” she asked.

“Me? I don’t know. Growing up my father bought me lots of shit. A car for my seventeenth birthday, I guess.”

“That’s boring.” She took a sip of her margarita, and a line of salt stuck to her lip.

“You have…” I pointed to my mouth where the salt was on hers. “Salt.”

She reached up and swiped her lip, but the wrong side.

I chuckled and reached across the table. “I got it.”

Without giving it a second thought, I brought the salt from her lips to mine and sucked it off my thumb. Maybe I was deluding myself, big ego and all, but I swear her lips parted, and if I’d leaned in, I would have heard a little gasp.

Fuck. I bet she’s really responsive in bed.

I cleared my throat. “What about you? Best present you ever received?”

“My parents gave me a gift certificate for Lasik surgery when I turned eighteen.”

“Lasik? But you wear glasses.”

“Oh, I didn’t keep the gift. I went down to the doctor’s office and explained that my parents had made a mistake, and I didn’t want the surgery.”

“So you didn’t want the surgery, but it was the best present you ever received?”

She sipped her margarita again. Unfortunately, no salt left behind this time. I thought about pretending there was, but she started to speak again too quickly.

“Oh, no, I wanted to get the surgery. In second grade, Missy Robinson called me Grandma because I needed different glasses to see the board and to read. The name stuck throughout elementary school. I hated my glasses. For a long time, I wouldn’t wear them, even though I had to squint and constantly got headaches.”

“What am I missing? Your parents got you something you really wanted, so you returned it?”

“My parents couldn’t afford the surgery. It was six thousand dollars, and my dad was driving around in a twenty-year-old car. But it was the nicest present I could ever have asked for.”

Add sweet to a great rack, highly fuckable ass, and smart mouth. That smart mouth is also quite fuckable, I might add.

“What about now? If you could have anything you wanted for your birthday today, what would it be?”

Her finger tapped at her lip while she thought. “A bath.”

“A bath? Like one of those spa treatment mud things or something?”

“Nope. Just a good soak in a nice tub. My apartment only has a shower, and I really miss taking a bath. I used to take one every Saturday morning—put in my headphones and soak until I was shriveled. It’s my happy place.”

I took a long draw from my beer, watching her again. “You’re easy to please.”

She shrugged. “How about you? If today was your birthday and you could pick one present, what would it be?”

I swallowed my immediate thought. Beck. Not wanting to bring down Emerie’s mood on her birthday, I gave her my second pick for a present. “A blowjob would be nice.”

Emerie was mid-sip and sprayed her margarita all over me when she laughed.

I wiped my face with a napkin. “Well, now I’ve had the salt and the margarita.”

She giggled. “I’m sorry.”

It was after two in the morning by the time we stumbled to Emerie’s apartment. I’d insisted on walking her home. I had a buzz going, but I thought she might be closer to drunk.

“Shhh….” She held a finger up to her mouth to tell me to keep it down, yet she was the one being loud. Pointing to the apartment next door as she fished in her purse for keys, she added, “That’s Baldwinny’s apartment.”

Yep. She was drunk.

I took the keys from her hand. “Might do him some good to hear you with another man.”

Emerie stepped aside so I could unlock the door for her. Letting out a big sigh, she leaned her head on my arm while I screwed with the lock. The damn thing seemed to be stuck.

“He wouldn’t be jealous,” she slurred. “He doesn’t want me.”

I jiggled the keys in the lock a few more times and the bolt clanked open. “Well, then he’s an idiot.”

I pushed the door open and held out the keys to her. On the handoff, she bobbled them and giggled some more when we banged heads reaching down to pick them up from the floor. Over the sound of her laughter, I heard the door next to her apartment open. Emerie didn’t seem to.

When Baldwin stepped into the hall and looked at us, I suddenly felt very territorial. With her back to him, Emerie was still unaware that we had an audience. She smiled up at me with those big blue eyes, and something came over me. I leaned in and gave her a soft kiss on the lips—a toe in the water to take the temperature.

That little kiss was all testosterone, me being a dick to the asshole next door. Pissing on the fire hydrant, so to speak. But when I pulled my head back and saw her eyes dilated and lips parting for more, my next move had nothing to do with who was watching.

It was sheer desire. I lost it. My mouth crashed down on hers again, and her lips parted for me. My tongue slid in, and I took my first long stroke inside. It was salty and peppered with tequila, but it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. And suddenly, I was starving.

I pulled her flush against me and wrapped my arms around her tight. There was no guy who she was in love with watching—it was just me and Emerie. Everything else disappeared as I deepened the kiss, and she eagerly pushed her tits up against my chest. The sound she made when my hand went to her phenomenal ass encouraged me to keep going. I wanted nothing more than to push her up against her door and grind my swelling cock against her. And I might have given in and done it, had the asshole next door not put a damper on the moment.

Baldwin cleared his throat. Hearing the sound, Emerie pulled away and turned to find that the man she was in love with had just watched this entire thing. She looked startled, and I hated that there was already a look of regret in her eyes. I didn’t have the heart to make her feel any more shaken than she already was.

Cupping her cheeks, I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Maybe that will wake him up.” Then I kissed her cheek. “See you at the office, birthday girl.”

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