I took her home.
It was insanity, but who the f**k could resist a girl like Iris? Not me.
Even so, I told myself I’d humor her curiosity and then take her wherever she wanted to go. I had absolutely no business doing more than that. She was legal, thank God, but still far too young. At least for that.
As though reading my mind, her hand went to my knee, her touch light. “God, that thing is impressive. I swear it has its own pulse. I can see it beating.”
I nearly went off the road. “Are you talking about…?!”
“Your cock. You wear those big, thick clothes at the gym. I had no clue you were packing such heat.”
“Knock it off,” I told her.
She dissolved into giggles, her hand falling from my knee.
“You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” I asked her with a smile. “You can tell I’m harmless, so you’re putting me on.”
Her hand touched the back of my neck, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. She rubbed hard at my nape, and my eyes began to close with the pleasure.
I fought to pay attention to the road.
“I like you, Alasdair. Can’t you tell?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that. My ex-wife had done a number on me. Married twenty years to the woman, doing everything I could think of to make her happy, and she’d hated my guts. I couldn’t have been particularly likable.
Iris was friendly and talkative enough, but I noticed that she was not the sort to talk about herself, and I found myself talking too much, which was not at all like me.
“I live alone in a very big house. It’s a waste really. I should look for something smaller. I was married when I had it built. I didn’t intend to be alone when I designed the thing.”
“So you’re divorced?”
“Yes. About a year now.”
“And you were married just the one time?”
I exaggerated a wince, shooting her a sheepish smile. “I must seem so old to you, huh? But yeah, just the one time. For twenty years.”
She whistled. “Twenty years? What happened?”
I just shook my head. I couldn’t talk about it without sounding bitter, and I didn’t want to come across that way. Not to her.
“And you’re not old, Alasdair. You’re distinguished.”
That surprised a laugh out of me. “Oh, that’s rich. Yes, I’m apparently very distinguished, and you’re young enough to be my daughter.”
“Only if you had me when you were sixteen. Do you have any kids?”
“No. I always thought I would, but time just slipped away. I’m too old now, I think. I like kids, though.”
“You’re not too old. That’s ridiculous. Look at your hard-on. That thing looks like it wants to make babies right now.”
I sent her a censuring look and tried to make it convincing.
She just gave me an irrepressible smile.
We got to the gates of my community. I waved to the security guard, and he nodded back, letting me in. I saw him shoot Iris one quick glance, his expression indecipherable, as we went by.
“Oh, I bet we just started some good rumors. ‘Alasdair’s brought home a young, scantily clad girl again.’”
I shifted uncomfortably, but couldn’t stifle my urge to correct her. “Not again. I don’t do this sort of thing. Not ever.”
“Not ever? And what sort of thing are we calling this now, Dair? I’m dying to know.”
“Bring women home. Especially very young women. I’ve never done this.”
She beamed at me for that one. “I like you. You make me feel good.”
I could say the same for her, but I didn’t. I was being enough of a beast already, bringing her home.
She whistled long and low when I pulled into my U shaped driveway.
I parked directly at the front door, the car ready to take her on the return trip. Still just humoring her.
I kicked my shoes off in the entryway, tossing my gym bag down.
She copied me, tossing her own bag on top of mine.
“You can use my shower,” I told her, my eyes all over her na**d skin.
“You’re a doll. I’ll do that. God, you’re tall.”
She moved to stand right in front of me, her hand up as though to measure.
I was over the six-foot mark, and she was just the right height to tuck her little blonde head under my chin.
I shook off that ridiculous image.
At her insistence, I gave her the grand tour of my oversized house. I hadn’t taken pride in it in a long time. It had turned into a rather large tomb for the bad memories from the last years of my marriage. But oddly, I found myself taking that pride again as I showed it to her. I had designed it, top to bottom, and I really did love the house.
It was a modern monstrosity at eight thousand square feet, but I liked my space. Probably because I liked to spend ninety percent of my time in it.
She took particular delight in my large library, running her hands along the spines of the books in the classics section.
“I could spend a year in here,” she told me.
That had my brows raising. I’d gotten the impression she was more of a wild party girl than a reader. “You like to read?”
Her nose wrinkled like she thought that was the oddest question. “Um, yeah. Who doesn’t like to read?”
Good point. I mean, there were people that didn’t like to read. Logically, I understood that, but it had always baffled me anyway.
I meant to pick her brain about that more, but she was off again, and I was following, my eyes glued to her perfect little ass as I showed her the rest of the house.
CHAPTER THREE
She acted very impressed that I’d designed the place. She had a lot of questions, curious about every inch of the property and how it pertained to me.
It seemed to me that she was always trying to connect pieces of a puzzle.
One thing I noticed right away was that I never had to dumb my explanations down for her, which was something that stood out to me, because the dumbing down was such a common occurrence for me, that I wouldn’t have taken a note of it if I’d been doing the opposite. She understood my references, big and small picture. It was astounding, the more I thought about it, because she was just so young.