Flat-Out Sexy(24)

"More likely they're fighting. I should have never sprung this on Tammy.  That was wrong of me. But I was hoping she would see that there's  nothing wrong with a little fun, you know? I want her happy."

Suz was looking on the verge of tears and Ryder felt instantly horrible.  "Alright, I'll go check on them." He'd feel like a giant jackass doing  it, but he'd do it.

Excusing himself-not that Ty and Nikki looked like they gave a shit what  he did, since they were clearly groping each other under the table-he  stood up and went into his bedroom, expecting to find Elec and Tammy  either talking or wrestling naked on his bed. It surprised him that they  weren't in the room, but were in his bathroom with the door shut.

Maybe Tammy really was sick or something.

Ryder went up to the closed door, ready to knock, when he heard the  unmistakable sounds of sex coming from his bathroom, punctuated by Tammy  moaning, "Oh, shit, yes."



Alrighty then. Guess he wasn't needed to smooth out a fight. They were just smoothing it all out themselves.

And damned if he wasn't a little bit jealous. He couldn't remember the  last time he'd wanted a woman badly enough to nail her in the john at a  dinner party.

It had probably been since Suzanne, which really made him cranky.

Suddenly horny and annoyed, he went back out and sat down hard in his chair, saying,

"They're fine."

"Well, what are they doing?" Suzanne asked, her forehead creased with a heavy frown line.

To which he just raised an eyebrow and stared at her.

"Oh," she said, eyes going wide. "Ooohhh." Her fork was halfway to her mouth. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

Ty had heard the exchange and he looked at Ryder curiously. "Tammy and Elec? For real?"

"Apparently."

"What's going on?" Nikki asked. "Where are the other people?"

"In the other room," Ty told her.

"Well, why are they in there and we're in here? Is there something better in there?"

The poor girl looked so confused that Ryder almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

Suzanne clearly didn't. "Because Tammy is in there making like her feet hate each other, and they don't need us around for it."

Ty laughed and Ryder couldn't help but grin. Suzanne always had a crazy way with words.

It was too much for Nikki. She just frowned, then resumed chewing the  plain iceberg lettuce she was eating. It was meant to serve as a topper  for the fajitas, but she was just eating it all by itself and nothing  else.

Ryder looked at Ty and said, "Dude."

Ty gave him a sheepish grin. "I'm not in it for the conversation, that's for sure."

"I hear ya."

"You're both pigs," Suzanne said.

Ryder was suddenly tired of the whole self-righteous act from his ex.  "Why? Because we're just honest about it? And for the record, if a chick  says she just wants sex, all you women are like, ‘Woo hoo, you go girl,  take what you want.' But we do it and we're pigs."

"I've never known a woman who will tolerate grating stupidity just for  sex. When women go for sex only, usually they do find something  intriguing about the guy besides his penis.

And talk about double standards . . . when a woman just wants to get it on, everyone calls her a slut."

It was his fault for opening the door to the argument, but Ryder still  didn't feel like backing down. This was supposed to be his victory party  and Suzanne had been kind of mean to him all night. He didn't like  feeling her bite when he hadn't done anything wrong. "So you're telling  me that in between riding his jock, you found Carl intriguing? That's  amazing, because I didn't think he could string two words together  beyond ‘pass me the chewin' tobacca. ' "

Throwing out the name of the first guy Suzanne had dated post-divorce  was asking for fajita innards tossed in his face, but Suzanne just  turned an interesting shade of red and mutilated her paper napkin.

"Who's Carl?" Nikki asked.

"Just eat your damn lettuce," Suzanne said. Then her shoulders slumped  when Nikki looked like she'd been slapped. Suzanne said, "I'm sorry,  Nikki, I didn't mean to snap at you.                       
       
           



       

Ryder has just made me furious. Men can be so stupid."



"Oh, that's so true," Nikki agreed, giving a frown in Ty's direction. "Men are horrible."

Ty sat back in his chair and held his hands up. "What? What did I do?"

"The question is, what haven't you done?" Nikki asked darkly.

The sunny and vacant blonde looked suddenly satanic. Ryder immediately  felt better. The night was bound to get even more entertaining.





TAMARA bent over to retrieve her panties and tried to keep herself from  smiling. She should be shocked, appalled at herself, ashamed really,  that she had done something so completely tacky as to have a quickie  with Elec in Ryder's bathroom in the middle of a dinner party. But it  just felt too good to feel bad. That had been amazing sex, and she knew  beyond a doubt that if Elec wanted to have a repeat performance, she  would let him.

He was grinning at her as he tucked everything back in and rubbed his  hand over the top of his head to flatten his hair. "Now that's the kind  of victory celebration I'm talking about."

She couldn't help but smile back at him. "Congratulations."

"Why, thank you, darlin'."

"And a positive side effect is that my headache is gone." Tamara tried  to smooth out her hair, which was probably a lost cause. She threw it  back up into a lumpy ponytail and called it good. "Thank you for the  massage."

"Oh, it was my pleasure. Whenever your head hurts, you just call me and I'll see what I can do."

Now there was the best form of pain relief she could imagine.

Tamara tugged the bottom of her T-shirt down and adjusted her skirt so  everything was all back where it needed to be and wondered if she had  blown it with Elec by canceling their date, then arguing with him about  it. Because now that she had gone for round two with him, she couldn't  even remember why it had made sense to cancel in the first place. What  exactly was she so worried about?

They weren't talking long term or serious. It was just casual dating  and, clearly, lots of really great sex. She wanted that, deserved that,  needed that. As long as it didn't affect her children, why couldn't she  enjoy herself instead of staying home every Saturday trying to make do  with batteries?

"That's very thoughtful of you," she told him wryly.

"I'm that kind of guy." Elec pulled a loose hair off her lip and tossed  it in the sink. "Guess we need to go back out there, huh?"

"Guess so." Tamara hesitated, annoyed with herself. Was she really going  to go back out there without telling him she wanted to go out with him,  on her terms?

Elec squeezed her hand and turned around.

She couldn't let him just walk out, nor could she blame him for not  asking her out yet again. He probably didn't want to ruin the satisfying  moment between them, and he had to be feeling a little rejected.

So she said, "Elec, if the offer still stands, I'll go to dinner with you."

He stopped and turned around, his mouth breaking out into a crooked smile. "Really? Well, alright then. That's very cool."

Now she had to be clear about what she wanted, yet somehow tactful. "Can we go to your place?"

"We can go wherever you want."

"Can we be . . . discreet?" That didn't sound great, but she didn't know how else to put it.



She had thought he would question her further, but he didn't and she  refused to analyze what that meant. Hopefully it just meant he  understood her reasoning. Not that she'd given him any.

But Elec just said, "Okay. We can do that. You want me to cook dinner for you?"

"You cook?" Not that it mattered. She wasn't in this for the food, and  if it meant they would not be seen in public together, she was  definitely on board with that.

"I can handle myself in the kitchen. Nothing fancy, but I can manage."

"That would be nice." And now she suddenly felt shy for some stupid reason. "So Mondays probably work best for you, right?"

"Yep. Does early or later work better for you with getting a sitter?"

Yeah, her children. She needed to do something with them. "Can I let you know?"

"Of course." Elec gave her a soft kiss. "Now we really should get back."

This ought to be fun. Tamara tried really hard not to blush as they went  back out through Ryder's bedroom and reappeared in the dining room.  Four pairs of eyes looked at them curiously and it was obvious that  everyone knew what had gone down. Well, everyone except for Nikki.

"You two have been gone forever. What were you doing?" the blonde asked.