Beauty and the Geek (Gone Geek Book 1) Read online

  “I’m okay hearing that. I don’t make a habit out of lying to people. I never intended for this to happen. I don’t know if you know Piper—”

  “I did a reverse image search.”

  “She’s so photogenic, I hate her sometimes, but if I was going to be confused for anyone, I guess I’m lucky it was her.” Tamara chuckled. “Piper’s pissed at me. Like really pissed, and I can’t blame her. What I did was thoughtless. So, if you can’t get over what I said or did, that’s on me. And if I do it again? That’s really on me.”

  “I…can’t believe I sent that gif to a total stranger.” He covered his face with one hand. If the school found out…

  “Oh my God, I nearly died when she showed everyone.” Tamara’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth, muffling her chuckle.

  “Everyone?”

  “Piper might have shown it to our friends before I realized what was happening.”

  “Your friends are pretty pissed?”

  “Did you…Google us at all?” She made a face he couldn’t decipher.

  “Not beyond the reverse image search, no. It…felt wrong.”

  “Okay.” Tamara blew out a breath. “Then there’s…a lot you don’t know that’s out there. About Piper or me. I’m sure Piper would appreciate it if you didn’t Google her name. I…you can Google me. If you want.”

  The way she said it, how her complexion went a little green, Googling was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to…protect her. From something he knew nothing about.

  “The short version…Piper broke up with this guy and he put all their personal pictures and—videos—online. If you search her name, that’s still on the first page of search results no matter what we try, and I swear we’ve tried everything.”

  “Shit.” Something bad had happened not only to Piper, but to Tamara as well. Bad enough she looked like she wanted to vomit just talking about it. If he could build a robot, write a program—something—to keep her safe, he’d do it.

  “Yeah, so—please don’t? We can’t help people knowing the truth, but knowing and seeing are two different things. After what Piper went through with Carl, yeah. Everyone’s pissed at me. And I can’t blame them at all. If I’d have stopped to think about it, I would have known better. What Carl did…” Tamara sucked in a breath and shook her head. “I don’t know if I can forgive myself. I just…I was ready to say anything to keep you interested, and it’s not an excuse. It’s the truth. How I felt. And I made mistakes.”

  Stephen stared at her for several seconds.

  “What?” Tamara asked after a moment.

  “I don’t think anyone has ever said something like that to me.” This breathtakingly beautiful woman…wanted him.

  “Which part?”

  “No one has ever…wanted me around that much.”

  “Hey, I told you I’m an intelligence-slut and I’ll own that title. If you want proof, Rashae would be only too happy to throw me under that bus. You look really uncomfortable now.”

  “I just—I’m not used to someone using that word in a way they’re…comfortable with?”

  “What word? Slut?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Out of everything we’ve said to each other, that makes you uncomfortable?”

  Stephen’s brain skipped through his personal highlight reel of their more memorable moments.

  “Look, if you just randomly called me a slut, I’d probably take issue with it. But I totally accept that when it comes to a wickedly smart guy I get turned on. Maybe it’s cliché, but intelligence is sexy, and I’m not afraid to own up to what I am for the right person.” She stroked his fingers with one hand, a light, barely-there caress.

  What would her hands feel like on other parts of his anatomy?

  “I don’t know if I could call you that.” He rolled the word around in his head. The knee jerk reaction was a hell no.

  “Try it.” She smiled.

  “No.”

  “I’d only let you call me a slut. I mean, Rashae and the girls say it when it’s just us, joking around, but that’s not the same thing.”

  His slut.

  That was…okay, maybe. It still didn’t seem right. But…if they were talking sex…perhaps in the moment, it wouldn’t seem quite so bad.

  Tamara leaned closer. Her neckline gaped, granting him a glimpse of the tops of her breasts.

  “Do you want to know how wet I was watching you earlier?”

  “Not here.” Stephen closed his eyes.

  “All right, I have two cheeseburgers.” The waitress delivered burgers, fries and drinks all in one go.

  The entire time, Tamara kept glancing at him, her lips drawn up into a secretive smile. It was all Stephen could do to not tell their waitress to scram. “I guess you don’t want to know.” She shrugged. She was flirting, completely nonplused by his appearance, the stares, or being in public with him. It was…everything he’d wanted, just wrapped up differently.

  She’d told him she wanted him. And now the ball was in his court, so to speak. What was he going to do? His thoughts skipped from one to the other, creating a mental list.

  The only thing to do was to put himself out there and find out.

  “What if I found out for myself?” He shifted as his cock stiffened, all the blood rushing to his groin.

  “Right now?” She didn’t seem the least bit inhibited.

  “No. Your place or mine?”

  “Who lives closer?” She popped a fry between her lips.

  In that moment, he made his decision.

  “Probably me. Eat.”

  6.

  Tamara stepped over the threshold into the dark studio apartment. Light from the large windows gave the space a sense of airiness that was deceptive but welcoming.

  Her nerves were tied up in bunches of knots lodged in her throat. It was weird, she wasn’t the kind of person to get worked up about sex…but this was Stephen. He was different. He mattered.

  The door closed with a bang, and Stephen pushed her up against the wall. He wasn’t forceful, but there was purpose in his touch. His breath was hot against her cheek. The delicious tension had stretched tight between them, until she’d found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Even driving the short distance from the pub had been a trial in focusing beyond the idea of sex.

  “Do you still want to know how wet you make me?” she asked. It was the kind of thing she’d ask him if they were chatting. In person her pulse fluttered in a new, thrilling kind of way.

  Stephen bent his head. Their noses bumped. His lips were right there.

  She could still remember what they felt like.

  The brief kiss up against her car had only scrambled her brain further.

  He grasped the front of her shorts and she stopped breathing.

  There was no reason to play coy—they both knew what was going to happen—she just hadn’t expected him to be this…assertive. It took all her willpower to remain standing while he yanked the front of her shorts open. She could see the glint of light off his eyes, the hard line of his mouth, how he stared at her with such intensity.

  His hand slid into her panties and cupped her mound. She widened her stance and leaned her head back against the wall as his fingers slid along her folds, slipping between her labia.

  “Were you this wet then?” His voice was rougher, lower, like what she remembered best. He was turned on.

  “Not quite. Thinking about you, watching you eat and stare at my breasts, made it worse.” She gripped his wrist with one hand.

  “I was not staring. You’ll know when I stare.”

  Oh God, she hoped so.

  “Stephen.” She shifted against his hand, wanting him in her. Any part of him. She wasn’t picky.

  “What?”

  “Put your fingers inside me.”

  “How many?”

  He wanted her to count?

  With a cock his size, she needed more prep. She hadn’t exactly seen it in person, but now that he wa
s here…she was pretty sure her reference for size was off. In the right direction.

  “Three,” she said.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah.” She placed her free hand against his groin and the straining erection.

  “Let’s start with one.”

  He slipped one digit inside of her, her arousal making his entry easy. She almost sighed at the sensation, but it wasn’t enough. If anything, she wanted more.

  “God, you’re wet,” he whispered, voice strained. “You were in my lab, like this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t do that again. I can’t know you’re there like this.” His voice was rougher, frayed. He slid a second finger into her, pumping in and out. She shifted her hips with him, helping him find the right rhythm.

  “Why? Would I distract you?” She shimmied a bit and her shorts hit the floor.

  “Yeah.” He slid a knee between her thighs, his lips on her cheek. He added the third finger, stretching her a bit more.

  That—that was it.

  She opened her mouth and closed her eyes, the sensation of him—just about perfect.

  “Oh—yes.” She shifted, working her hips in time with the thrust of his fingers. They were building momentum now. He was taking what he wanted, what she’d offered. “God, I think about you fucking me all the time. There. Oh.”

  Stephen pushed his other hand under her shirt, palming her breast. Damn the stupid push-up bra. She wanted to feel his skin on hers. The way he teased her, how he’d drive her to insanity. He was too thorough, too purposeful to do anything he didn’t mean to.

  “You really are my slut.” His words were uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure of the statement.

  But she was.

  She loved those words, the implication that between them anything was okay. That she was his. She nearly orgasmed from the statement alone.

  “Yes, oh, fuck yes. I’ll be your anything.” She placed one foot against the wall and shifted, seeking a different angle.

  He pinned her against the wall, bracing her there with his weight, working his fingers deeper. She was his. His mouth covered hers, his tongue invading her with the same authoritative thrust as his fingers. Branding her with his touch.

  The only way this could be better was if they were naked, his cock inside of her.

  Stephen tore his mouth from hers, his pale gaze focused on hers.

  “Come on my fingers. Do it. My slut.”

  She shuddered at the last word, a cascade of pleasure spiraling through her so intense it left her weak in the knees, her head spinning. She sagged against him, her forehead on his shoulder, little tremors of pleasure threatening to send her to the floor.

  For a moment neither of them moved.

  She heard his heart beat racing in one ear, and their mingled pants with her other.

  “Tamara?” He gently pulled his hand from her panties, sparing a moment to ensure they were up and on.

  How sweet. And thoughtful. She wasn’t used to sweet and thoughtful, but she could learn to like it.

  “Hm?” He wanted to talk? Now? Really? She couldn’t form words.

  “Are you…was that, okay?” He sounded so uncertain, so very unlike the man she’d come to appreciate who seemed to simply know everything.

  “Totally.” She tightened her arm around his neck, nuzzling him.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever called anyone that before and…I just you’re sure?”

  She leaned back, grateful to the wall and him for propping her up.

  “Does it bother you?” She slid her hands down his chest, ready to see him in the flesh. All of him.

  “It’s a word with connotations.”

  “Do you like calling me your slut?” She walked her fingers down his sides. “Knowing how wet you make me? That you’re the only man I think about?”

  He paused to consider her questions, that big, wonderful brain of his breaking down his answer. “I liked it more than I expected.”

  “Say it then. Call me your slut.” She grinned. The professor had a naughty side. A really naughty side.

  “You like dirty talk.”

  “I do. I could never really get into it during chats. Not just anyone gets to call me—”

  “Their slut?” He placed his hand at the base of her throat. He didn’t squeeze, he just held it there.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d kick their ass.” His thumb caressed the length of her throat.

  “I would. What do you think of that?”

  “It’s hot.” He hadn’t once denied or challenged that she was every bit as proficient as she claimed to be. It was…refreshing. She didn’t have to prove her abilities to him. He simply accepted what she said at face value. It was a measure of the trust she hadn’t lost.

  “How hard are you?” She stroked him through the denim.

  “Hard enough to pound nails.”

  “Oh, yeah? You should pound me instead.”

  He leaned against her a little harder, their lips almost touching. She grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up. He stepped back and discarded the shirt.

  “Ho-ly shit.” She splayed her hands on his chest, her fingers tracing the line of a tattoo that spanned from his jeans up to his shoulders. “Is that…”

  “Optimus Prime.”

  “I love it.”

  Tamara grasped the front of his pants, tabbing them open. There’d be time to admire his ink and the new layer to his personality later. He took another step back, and she followed him all the way across the apartment to the couch. By the time the back of his calves hit the cushions, she was sliding his jeans and underwear down around his thighs.

  She pushed him back and he sat, his cock jutting out proudly.

  It really was impressive. Long. Thick. Perfect for pounding.

  She straddled his thighs and wrapped her hands around him.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  There was something about him, even when their interactions had been purely text. She wasn’t shy about doing or taking what she wanted when it came to sex. She’d learned early on that a considerate partner was a rare thing. But with him…she wanted to please him. To do what he asked, because he was always so focused on her and her pleasure. She wasn’t about to question what felt right. He felt right. Being with him was—perfect.

  Stephen stared at her, his face lost in shadow.

  She reached over to a floor lamp and twisted the knob until the dim light flickered on.

  His expression was…intense. Hard. His cheeks were slightly sunken in. Lips compressed. Eyes dilated a bit. Nostrils flared. Individual tells of arousal.

  He was prone to silence so severe, she was almost convinced she could hear him thinking. That beautiful brain of his was in full swing.

  She knew what she wanted.

  Tamara wanted that cock deep inside of her, pounding her so hard she screamed when she came. But an orgasm like that would sap her remaining strength.

  She kissed his chest, one flat nipple, and slid down between his legs until she was on the floor between his knees. A bit of moisture wetted the tip of his cock. She wrapped her hand around it, slicking the precome down his length. His cheeks sank in farther and he watched her, dark intent in his gaze.

  How far could she go before he said something? Before he decided just how he wanted her? Could she make him come before he chose?

  Tamara leaned in. Her hair brushed his leg, his abdominal muscles tightened, she could hear the intake of breath.

  She licked the mushroom cap, tasting the saltiness of his skin. She opened her mouth and let him slide farther, until he bumped the back of her throat. The girth, that would be her undoing. Fitting him inside of her.

  He slid a hand into her hair, not so much guiding or directing, simply holding on.

  That wouldn’t do.

  He needed to be as crazy turned on as she was. It was time to up her game.

  She sucked, rubbing her tongue along the thick v
ein, and wrapped her hand around the base of his cock. She pumped him, and with each pass his hold tightened until his head tossed back.

  His hold tightened.

  She closed her eyes and sank as much of him into her mouth and down her throat as she could. Her breasts ached and her sex throbbed. If she’d had any lingering doubt that taking things offline wouldn’t be as good, now she didn’t. It was a whole lot better.

  Stephen tugged on her hair, just a tiny yank, pulling her off his dick. She released him, sucking in a deep breath, and looked up at him. His pale eyes gleamed in the dim light. He leaned just a little closer, and she could have kissed him if it weren’t for his tight hold.

  “Strip,” he said.

  She shivered at the one-word order.

  “Is that what you want me to do? Slow and sexy, or—”

  “I want you naked and bent over the couch.”

  Tamara grinned. The raw edge in his voice excited her. Being in the same room with him was a thrill, but this? She’d never heard him like this before.

  He swooped in for an open-mouthed kiss, his tongue thrusting between her lips, his hold tight and demanding. If it weren’t for the hand in her hair she was certain she’d become a puddle on the floor.

  Stephen released her and sat up, his belt rattling across the floor as he shifted.

  She pushed to her feet, pulling her tank top up as she went. It fell to the floor, leaving her in the matching bra and panties she’d selected for just this opportunity. She’d figured there was a sixty-forty chance this was where they’d end up. Of course, she could have been wrong, and he could very well have told her to hit the road. But he hadn’t. Because this crazy, weird thing between them was very much real and worth exploring.

  Did he realize she’d picked the purple lingerie for him? Because he’d told her once he thought women in purple were the sexiest?

  He pushed up, stepping out of his jeans and shoes, reaching for her. Again, his kiss was hard and unyielding, while his nimble fingers released the catch on her bra. She took that moment to run her hands over his chest, his sides, explore his lean, runner’s body.

  Stephen broke the kiss and hooked one hand in the waistband of her panties.

  Smart, sexy and a bit dominating during sex?