My Prerogative Page 2

  3

  My timing was perfect.

  I made my way through the crowded tables of Vantage Sports Pub to the patio where my friend waited. I made it to the plastic deck chair waiting for me mere seconds before the waitress arrived with a pitcher of frozen margaritas.

  “How was Jamaica?” Dee McDonald asked as my butt hit the chair.

  I thought of Marco and the secluded beach escapade. “In a word . . . delicious.”

  Dee was the manager of an Irish pub near the university and my best friend for the past fifteen years, ever since we met in college. Only two years apart in age, and both working in the hospitality industry, we understood each other in ways that only close friends and other waitresses could. But even Dee only understood that part of me. She didn’t get that I was always searching for—well, searching.

  Hell, even I didn’t really know for sure what it was I was searching for. I just knew there had to be more to life than what was in front of me, and I wasn’t going to find out what it was by living by someone else’s rules.

  “Only a masochist would go to the Caribbean in August,” Dee said, distracting me from my thoughts.

  The server set frosty glasses on the table and Dee poured us each a margarita from the pitcher while I answered.

  “It was cheap, and not much hotter than this. Plus, the occasional afternoon thunderstorm cooled things off nicely.” I eyed her. Dee’s brunette hair was streaked blond and cut in a short bob. “And how were things in McDonald-land while I was gone? I like the new haircut, by the way. Very playful and summery.”

  “Thanks! Last week work sucked, and Jason fell asleep on the sofa every night, but the weekend was great. We got the backyard landscaped and the basement is almost finished. Oh, and Jason picked up a bunch of fitness equipment, including a cross trainer, so instead of meeting at the gym we can work out in the basement if we want.”

  I ignored the twinge of longing at the mention of comfortable married life and focused on the second half of what Dee said.

  Jason was Dee’s husband, and gorgeous as that man was, I didn’t want to be working out in any basement.

  “Sweetie, you’re forgetting that one of the reasons I work out at the gym is so I can drool over all the hot male hard-bodies that hang out there. What fun would working out in your basement be?”

  “Jason will be there, and I know you think he’s hot. He thinks you’re pretty too, so you two can just drool over each other.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get real. Jason can’t see anyone else when you’re around. Not that he’d drool over me anyway.”

  It was Dee’s turn to roll her eyes. “You get real, you’re like a cross between a fifties pinup model and the modern Goth Girl. If Marilyn Monroe was a thirtysomething right now, she’d look like you. Well, with black hair. The point is, all you have to do is smile and bat your eyelashes and men drool over you.”

  “Yeah?” I couldn’t help myself, Dee had hit a sensitive spot. “First off, I’m not a goth, I just happen to have a unique sense of style. And second, is that why I’m almost thirty-five and still single? Because I’m so pretty that all I have to do is smile and men drool?”

  “No,” she said and waved her hand dismissively. “You’re still single because you want to be single. Anytime a guy tries to get closer to you than your bed, you sabotage the relationship.”

  That was because when men found out how much I enjoyed sex, that was all they saw. They stopped seeing me as anything more than a real-life blow-up doll, and I wanted more than that. I deserved more than that.

  “If I wanted to be single, I wouldn’t have put that stupid personal ad online,” I muttered.

  “How’s that going, anyway?”

  “It’s not.” I watched over Dee’s shoulder as the couple at the table behind her leaned together and kissed. It was a slow, seductive kiss, with the guy cupping the woman’s cheek in his hand as he looked into her eyes. It was the kind of kiss I dreamt about.

  “Kelsey?”

  “Huh?” I tore my gaze away from the couple and focused on the conversation. Where were we? Oh yeah, the online thing. I drained the last of my margarita and made light of it all. “After chatting online to more guys than I thought possible, I gave it up as hopeless about a month ago.”

  “Hopeless? Really?”

  Well, except for Randy. But Randy wasn’t a boyfriend, he was occasional . . . exercise. He filled a need, that was it. But I didn’t say that. Dee might be my closest friend, but there were some things even I preferred to keep private.

  “Yeah, only a few of the men were interesting enough to actually meet for a drink. And of course, the ones I’m attracted to aren’t interested in me, and vice versa. It’s easier to just stick with what I have.” Which is a lover who was happy to come when I called, share a drink or two, fuck, then leave.

  “What about the gym?” Dee asked.

  “No one ever hits on me at the gym.” I caught the waitress’s eye and she nodded. Another pitcher was on the way.

  “Maybe if you didn’t wear headphones someone would try to chat you up.”

  “I tried that actually. And you know what I noticed?”

  “What?”

  “That everyone else was wearing headphones.”

  Dee shook her head and I laughed.

  “What about the grocery store?” Dee said determinedly. “You love to cook and I know you hit the market at least twice a week.”

  I waved my hand. “Urban myth.”

  “Ha! You’re just too damn picky.”

  That got me.

  “I’m not too picky,” I snapped. “I just know myself, and what I need to be happy. So you’re right, I am single because I want to be.”

  “What do you need, then?”

  Tequila had loosened my tongue enough that I didn’t even think about it. “I want someone who will see below the surface and be in love with me. I want someone who wants more than to see me happy. I want someone who wants to make me happy.

  “I want someone that makes me want to please him. I know it’s almost archaic but I want someone to cook for. Someone to sit on the couch and veg with as well as someone I can give a look to, who’ll be able to read it. He’ll know when I want to kill him, and when I want to ravish him. Or when I want him to slam me against the wall and have his way with me.” And I want him to accept that sometimes, he alone won’t be enough for me.

  Dee’s brows puckered. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting the fantasy, Kels. But you have to understand that not everyone gets it.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that not everyone gets it because not everyone is willing to wait for it?”

  Dee stared at me blankly. I’d shocked her. Shit, I’d shocked myself. My façade was cracking and real emotions were starting to leak out. I had to stop that. Now.

  All I’d ever really admitted to myself was that I’d rather be on my own than waste my time in a relationship that wasn’t everything I wanted. Everything I needed. Self-analysis was good, sometimes it even helped, but I did not need anyone thinking I was some lonely chick who needed a man to make her life complete. I worked damn hard to convince everyone who knew me that I was completely happy with every aspect of my single life.

  I worked even harder to convince myself.

  The shock in Dee’s eyes had faded and I could clearly see concern building. Shit.

  Relief swept over me when the waitress set a fresh jug of margaritas down. Dee grimaced. I poured myself another.

  “I work in a nightclub, Dee. I see people fucking around and cheating on their partners all the time. That’s what happens when people settle, and I’m not going to do that. I have to believe there’s someone out there for me. Someone who will love the hyperactive, outgoing, and flirty me, as much as the somewhat dark and twisted me. If there isn’t, then I don’t want anyone.” I grinned at my friend. “Not on a permanent basis, anyway.”

  Dee laughed and shook her head. “That’s probably best. It’ll happen when you
least expect it, it always does. Besides, you’re too busy traveling all over and playing sex games with your bed buddies to settle down right now. If you weren’t single you wouldn’t be able to do that. You certainly wouldn’t have been able to pick up some stranger and fuck him on the beach in Jamaica.” She winked at me. “Lucky bitch. How was it?”

  I choked on a mouthful of margarita. “How do you know I even did that?”

  “You said you were going to, and you always do what you say you’re going to. Now stop stalling and tell me how it was. I’m a boring old married woman. I need to live vicariously through you.”

  “Boring maybe, but not old,” I stated firmly. “I’m older than you and I’m not old. So that means you’re not old yet, either.”

  Dee raised her glass and tilted her head. “Point taken.”

  The waitress came by to check on us and I ordered a couple of tequila shots.

  “One shot, and that’s it,” Dee warned. “The last time we got into the shooters, Jason wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the weekend. Funny how he gets mad at me when I have a few drinks, yet every time he comes home from playing golf, he’s hammered.”

  I bit my tongue and took another sip of frosty lime loveliness. Dee had no idea how much I envied her relationship with Jason, and I wanted to keep it that way. There were times when booty calls and bed buddies were fun and exciting, but there were also times when coming home to an empty apartment sucked.

  The waitress dropped off the tequila shots and I was quick to reach for mine. “To a man who loves you,” I said and raised my glass in a toast.

  Dee raised her glass and clinked it against mine. “To living out the fantasy of fucking a stranger on a beach.”

  For the next couple of hours Dee and I talked about work, clothes, Jamaica, Marco, and our hopes for the upcoming hockey season. The pub crowd thinned as time passed and people moved on to whatever plans they had for the evening. Just after four o’clock, Dee announced it was time to go.

  “You go,” I replied. “I’m going to stay awhile longer.”

  She dug some cash out of her wallet and put it on the table beneath her empty glass. “Must be nice. I get to go home and cook dinner for a man who’ll probably just fall asleep on the couch the minute he’s done eating.”

  “So wake him up,” I said, tired of her whining.

  “Easier said than done, my friend.”

  One of my biggest pet peeves is when people complain about something, yet do nothing to change it. Like a wife complaining about her husband falling asleep on the sofa. As far as I was concerned, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And the easiest way was sometimes the best.

  “Use sex. He’s a man, that’ll wake him up.”

  “Use sex? Hell, I’d be thrilled to have sex tonight. It’s been almost a week, and last time it was barely over before he started snoring.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Tell me about it.” She slumped back in her seat. “We had sex more often before we were married. You’re single and you have more sex than we do.”

  That really is sad.

  If I were married, you’d bet the man would be giving it to me every night. Otherwise divorce would be inevitable—unless he didn’t mind me having sex with others. I could probably live with that.

  I gave my head a shake. It was time to focus on Dee. “So liven it up,” I told her. “Wake him up in a way he’ll never forget, and maybe he’ll be a little more energetic for the rest of the night.”

  Dee’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward, her purse still clutched in her lap. “Tell me, Oh Wise Wild One, how should I do that?”

  Excitement rippled through me.

  I loved sex. I thought about sex all the time. Positions, scenarios, certain people, combinations of people, different ways to masturbate, different kinks. Over the years I’d found that there were few problems or issues that either alcohol or sex couldn’t cure.

  Temporarily anyway . . . I was still working on the long-term cure.

  Mind you, falling asleep on the sofa sounded short-term to me. “Do you guys ever role-play?”

  Her brows puckered. “Role-play? As in the Naughty Nurse and her bedridden patient?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, that’s one type of role-playing. You guys ever do anything like that?”

  “We tried it once, but I couldn’t stop laughing.”

  Dee and I have been friends for a long time, and while she wasn’t as . . . open as I was, I remembered our drunk partying nights pretty clearly. She wasn’t as angelic as her big brown eyes led people to believe either.

  “After dinner, tell him you’re going to the bedroom, and be sure to give him the look.”

  “The look?”

  “Yeah. The one that says ‘Follow me, I’m horny.’ ”

  “Oh, that look.” Dee laughed. “Okay. Got it.”

  “When you’re upstairs, find some sexy lingerie—matching bra and panties, garter and thigh highs, baby doll night-gown—whatever you have that you know gets him hard and will make him drool.”

  A secretive smile spread across Dee’s lips and I knew she instantly had an outfit in mind.

  “If he hasn’t followed you into the bedroom by the time you’ve changed and are ready, then go get out the vacuum.”

  “The vacuum?”

  “If he’s asleep on the sofa, it’ll wake him up. If he’s not, he’ll still notice you. Just go about the cleaning, as if you had on sweatpants and a T-shirt. Bending here, stretching there.” I gave her a stern look. “But ignore him.”

  Dee’s eyes were round and she was grinning like an idiot. “Oh my God,” she said. “That will drive him absolutely nuts.”

  “There you go.” I nodded. “The rest is up to you, but I suggest if you have to take out the vacuum, you make him work for it.”

  We shared another chuckle and Dee jumped up. “Okay, I’m outta here. I’ll call you.”

  “I’m gonna want details.”

  4

  I sat in the cheap plastic chair at the little patio table all by myself and people-watched for a while. I’d had a bit to drink, and I needed to kill some time before I drove home.

  My mind kept going back to the online dating thing. Dee had been harping on me for years to stop being so open about my sexuality. That no matter what men said, the old double standard was still there. Good girls didn’t have sex on the first date, and bad girls were only good for sex.

  I told her I refused to believe it . . . but in reality, I believed it. I just refused to let it change who I was or how I acted. And I’d paid for it.

  The online thing had been intriguing for a month or so, but it ended up being nothing but demoralizing. All that talking and flirting through e-mails only to meet the guys and find out either (A) there was absolutely no chemistry at all or (B) they were liars.

  There had been one or two that I’d had great chemistry with, and great sex too, but that had been it. The worst thing about the online dating fiasco had been that it had gotten my hopes up. It had seemed a great way to meet guys outside the bar, but in all reality, the men online were worse than the ones in the bar. At least the guys in the bar didn’t try to pretend they wanted more than what they did, which was usually a night or two of hot sex, with no promises.

  The guys online handed out a bunch of crap about looking for a relationship and love. The majority of the time I’d meet with them, and silly me, think we were forming a connection, only to discover that once they got laid, I never heard from them again. I was all for a night of hot, dirty sex with a stranger, no strings attached, but I didn’t like being lied to.

  Whatever. I might be willing to give up the hunt for love, but I was not going to give up sex. It was one of the few things that kept me sane.

  All that thinking about sex had erotic heat thrumming through my veins and a dampness forming between my thighs. Dee knew I had more than one lover, but she had no idea just how addicted to it all I’d become over the years. One glance around the pub
showed me there were no single men to hit on and my frustration rose.

  Then I got mad at myself. “Jesus, Kelsey, you just got laid for a week straight. Give yourself a time-out,” I muttered to myself.

  To make sure I didn’t follow the urge to troll through my phone index for a man to fuck, I flipped open my cell and dialed from memory. “Hey little sis, what are you up to tonight?”

  “Kelsey! I thought you were on a beach somewhere?”

  “That was last week. Keep up, would ya?”

  Ariel’s light laugh echoed over the phone line. “Sorry. It’s tough having a jet-setting sister, y’know. What’s up?”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while and I thought I’d invite you over to dinner tonight. I have a new recipe I want to try out.” I didn’t have a new recipe, but cooking and eating were second only to sex on my list of life’s simple pleasures. And beaches. Yeah, lying on beaches was up there on that list too.

  “Ohhhh.” Ariel moaned into the phone. “It sounds so good. You know I love your cooking, but I have to finish addressing these freak’n wedding invitations.”

  “Do that tomorrow.”

  “I can’t. It’s the fifteenth and I have to get them done or Miles’s mother will never let me live it down.”

  I snorted. “Procrastinated as long as you could, huh?” Ariel was the queen of the last-minute detail. Speaking of which. “Have you found a dress yet?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” she said crisply. Then her voice took on a hopeful tone. “Since you don’t have a date tonight, you could come over and help me with the invitations.”

  “Um, no.” I laughed. “I think I’ll stay away from the homestead while it’s all caught up in wedding fever. It’s not my style. But you be sure to call me whenever you need to get away from it all.”

  Ariel promised and we hung up.

  Restless energy had me up and out of my seat in seconds. I tossed some cash on the table to match Dee’s and headed out of the pub.

  The closer I got to home, the hornier I became. By the time I parked my car and strode up the stairs to my apartment I had a clear plan, if not a clear head. I pulled my toy chest out from under my bed, stripped off my clothes, and went back to the living room with my hands full.