Taming the Tease Teaser!

YAY!  My first teaser for Taming the Tease, book 2 in the Stronghold series.  You might remember Rick Winter from The Venus Quartet as well as from Stronghold.  He's a sexy blonde who's definitely looking for a relationship, he just doesn't know with who.  But he's finally moved up to be closer to his friends and to Stronghold and one of his new neighbors is definitely tempting him even though he knows better than to try to date someone who lives in the same building as him, especially when there's no sign she's at all submissive.

Maria's a curvy, sassy, thirty year old with three younger sisters - two of whom are married and the youngest just got engaged.  But that doesn't bother her, what DOES bother her is the amount of people in her life who seem to think that it should.  She's tired of the worried pity glances and the 'supportive' comments, and she's also tired of her lack of sex life.  So when her incredibly sexy new neighbor seems like he might be interested, even though with his good looks he's probably a player, that doesn't stop her from wanting to get to know him better.  

Taming the Tease

Stroke, stroke, stroke and breathe; stroke, stroke, stroke and breathe... Rick preferred to breathe on every third stroke when he was swimming freestyle.  It was how he'd been taught and he found that twisting his head from side to side rather than always coming up on the same side meant his neck got a more symmetrical workout.  He didn't know why that mattered to him, but it did.  

Sometimes he felt like he was getting old and set in his ways.  

Gliding the last couple of meters into the wall, he came up for air and stretched out his shoulders.  This morning he'd taken a bit of a longer workout than usual.  He'd needed to burn off the energy again. 

Sexually frustrated much? 

He nearly groaned when he saw the lusciously curved brunette that he'd been watching, apparently venturing out in the morning for the second day in a row, this time tucked into a bright red bikini with tiny ruffles edging the top and bottom.  Ruffles were dumb, in his opinion, but on her they didn't detract from her attractiveness.  And the screaming red color suited her dark hair and tanned skin perfectly.

The rest of the pool area was nearly empty.  There was a young mother with her toddler on the opposite side and another older man that Rick recognized as a fellow lap-swimmer, and the tempting brunette.  Who was putting her stuff down on a lounge chair only two away from his.

There were plenty of other lounge chairs further away, but he saw the way she was looking at him out of the corner of her eye.  She'd deliberately chosen a location near his towel.  

Interest stirred, along with his cock.

Stop it.

No getting involved with the neighbors.  Obviously a reminder that bore repeating.  Besides, he might be reading too much into things.  Maybe she hadn't been looking at him at all.  Or maybe she'd only been looking at him and wondering if it was his towel that was sitting so close to her chosen spot.

Ugh.  He was starting to sound like a teenage girl inside his head.  Great.

Ducking back into the pool, he kept swimming.  But the entire time he was also picturing the brunette and that wasn't good either.  He swam faster.  

Ten laps later he glided back into the wall and came up breathing heavily.  One quick look over in the brunette's direction nearly had him groaning again.  She was laid out on her stomach and she'd undone the top of her bikini, leaving the expanse of her back completely bared to the sun.  Why that was so sexy, he wasn't sure, but somehow a woman with her bikini top undone was always an erotic tease.  Maybe it was just the vain hope that she might forget to redo it before sitting up.

Yeah.

Time to go home again.  He was done with his work out and while he'd originally been planning to spend some time drying out in the sun as the day heated up, he knew he wouldn't be able to relax and enjoy it with her only two chairs away.  Pulling himself out of the pool, he did his best not to look at her as he padded over to his chair and picked up his towel.  Rubbing it roughly over his face, he took the moment to regain his balance, unsure of why her mere presence unsettled him so badly.

Slipping on his sandals, he slung his towel around his neck and headed towards the exit.

"Hey, do you have a second?"

The sound of her sultry, sleepy voice, tinged with just the faintest hint of an accent, had Rick doing a quick about turn.  Yep.  Sunbathing beauty was looking up at him with a smile, her head and shoulders raised just enough to make his cock twitch in hopes that he was going to get to see something scandalous.  

"Sure," he said, taking a step towards her.  He knew he was looming over her a bit, but the position helped him regain some of his equilibrium.  Damn she looked good from this angle.  The bikini bottoms were clinging to the well-rounded cheeks of her ass, which was soft and cushy looking - the kind of ass a man wanted to grab onto or spank the hell out of.  Rick wanted to do both.  And the fact that her bikini was red only made visualizing it easier.  "What can I do for you?"

Her eyes brightened and her smile deepened, revealing a dimple on her left cheek.  Rick had never thought he had a weakness for such things, but on her...

Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a white tube.  "Can you get my back?  I can just feel the heat coming down and I don't wantto turn over yet."

"Sure."  The word was out of his mouth for a second time, his body eagerly taking over from his brain.  Not that his brain would have been able to come up with a good excuse to get out of her simple request.  But at least his brain knew it was a bad idea.  He could have hesitated instead of jumping on the excuse to touch her.

"Thanks."

That sleepy, sultry smile was doing all sorts of havoc, but he had a lot of practice at keeping his face expressionless.  Still, he didn't want her to think he was unfriendly, so he gave her a small smile back as he squirted the white cream onto his hand.

Yeah, don't think too hard about that.

Her deep brown eyes went down to a half-lidded state as she watched him sit down on the chair next to hers and reach over to her back.  Soft.  Warm.  Pliable.  Rick tried to concentrate on smoothing the sunscreen in evenly rather than on how silky and inviting her skin was.

"Mmmmmm..."

Giving her a quick glance, he saw that her eyes had closed and she had a little smile on her face, looking very much like the cat that got the cream.  Satisfied.  Sexy.  

"My name's Maria."

"Rick."