She had no doubt of that.
Imogen swallowed hard and wondered what exactly she had gotten herself into.
CHAPTER FOUR
SO much for swearing off casual sex.
Ty had meant to stick to that conviction.
It wasn't his fault that Imogen had tested his resolve a mere five minutes after he had made his decision.
She was definitely worth breaking the vow for, and somehow he just couldn't think of her in the same category as Nikki or any woman he had randomly hooked up with in the past. Imogen was more than that.
It wasn't just her physical appearance he was attracted to; it was her personality, her intelligence.
The way her mind worked fascinated him, and he liked her openness, her innate honesty. Whatever was going on in her head came out of her mouth, and that was a damn refreshing change. She was a logical little thing and didn't seem prone to emotional outbursts. When was the last time he had dated a woman like that?
Never.
Ty looked behind him, put Imogen's car in reverse, and shot out of the driveway way faster than he needed to, causing her tires to screech.
"Ack!" she said, grabbing on to the dashboard with one hand and reaching for her seat belt with the other. "Was that really necessary?"
"No. But I like speed as much as I like to drive."
"Save it for the track, Mr. Checkered Flag. My car will self-destruct if you push it too hard." Ty grinned over at her. "Did you really just call me Mr. Checkered Flag?"
"Yes," she said grudgingly. "I couldn't think of anything better. But I'm serious. This car can't go over sixty-five or it will start to rattle and vibrate. It's old and cranky and seems to have some digestive issues."
"I bet I could coax it to some speed, Miss Victory Lap."
The ridiculous name he called her in return made her laugh, but she shook her head. "Don't try it."
"Watch me. We'll skip the highway and take the back roads to my place."
"It's raining. The roads are slick."
"You think I can't handle a little slick blacktop at a puny hundred miles an hour?" Ty shifted gears hard and opened the car up a little as they turned out of Tamara and Elec's suburban neighborhood onto the rural route heading south.
"The real question is how you'll handle my hands around your neck throttling you if you don't listen to me."
He laughed so hard at her unexpected words he started coughing. Swallowing hard, he said, "Them's fighting words, Emma Jean."
Damn, it was a refreshing change to have a woman tell him exactly what she thought. Nikki had been a pouter, not a protester, which was annoying. Pouting from a woman made him feel irritated and guilty.
Imogen's firm no-nonsense approach amused him and had him obeying. He eased up on the gas pedal.
"Thank you," she said in acknowledgment of his decreased speed.
"You're welcome. But for the record, you're too small to throttle me with any success."
"Do you want to test the theory?" she asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose.
"No, ma'am." He shot her a look. "I can think of a lot better things you could be doing to me with those hands."
"Part of me assumes that what you are saying is so obviously sexually charged, you don't actually mean anything specific. It was just meant to be a sort of verbal foreplay. So I shouldn't bother to ask the inevitable ‘like what?' question. But the other part of me wants to know if there is actually something you would like me to do to you in bed. You know, if you have a particular fantasy or position that you've been contemplating."
Ty almost groaned. He did shift in his seat to try for a more comfortable angle since his jeans were suddenly cutting into him from the erection that had sprung up at her words. There was something so unbelievably hot about Imogen's bold curiosity. She didn't say anything to be coy, but to satisfy her own curiosity and to make sure that she was in full awareness of all the facts.
He'd never tried the academic approach to sex before and it was doing a number on him.
There hadn't been any particular action he'd been thinking of when he'd spoken. He had just wanted to keep her aroused and focused on sex until he could get her back to his condo. But now that she had asked, he had a whole slideshow of positions clicking through his head. He didn't think he could pick just one.
"Let me think about it and I'll let you know."
"Okay." She bit her lip. "But just so you know in advance, I'm not having anal sex with you." Ty almost drove off the road. He could not believe she had just said that. Trying desperately not to laugh, he nodded carefully. "Okay. I'll make note of that. Though that ruins all my plans for the night. Guess I'll have to reorganize and come up with a new strategy."
"Really?" She sounded a little unnerved.
"No." He tossed a grin at her.
It was hard to tell in the dark, but he thought she might have blushed. "I didn't need to announce that, did
I?"
"Probably not, but I can appreciate you wanting to make that clear. Anything else I should know?" It was more than likely a bad idea to ask Imogen to list her sexual taboos, because God only knew what would come out of her mouth, but he wanted to reassure her.
"Well, I suppose there are but it occurs to me that normally those likes and dislikes, off-limit areas, and an agreement on a mutual level of kink are revealed in the bedroom together with a combination of hands-on and verbal discovery, not ahead of time in casual conversation." He wasn't sure he had understood a damn word she'd said. He had pretty much lost all his blood from his brain to his erection when Imogen used the word kink . "Doesn't matter, babe. We can forge our own path. You want to talk about it now, I'm on board with that." Ty pulled onto his street and opened up the engine a little bit. It would disappoint his neighbors if he didn't fly into his driveway at sixty miles per hour.
Imogen grabbed the dashboard again and held on. "I don't think I do want to talk about it." Glancing over, he saw she was biting her lip. "What's the matter?"
"I've sucked the spontaneity out of this, and I'm annoyed with myself." She did look upset. "No, you haven't. We can go on in and be totally spontaneous. Like whose shirt will come off first? That's still a mystery at this point."
Now she was actually chewing her bottom lip with her teeth, frown lines etching into her forehead as they sat in the idling car in his driveway. "That's not spontaneity. That's simply variances of an already established intent."
Say what? "Speak English, babe." He gestured to himself with his thumb. "Dumb driver here."
"You're not dumb. That's ludicrous. You're obviously quite intelligent." That made him feel oddly humble and flattered. He thought of himself as fairly street smart, but in no way was he book smart, yet it felt good to hear Imogen say she didn't see him as a box of rocks. "Well, I can't balance my bank account, but I do alright, I guess."
"And the reason you can't understand me is because I'm not making any sense." That seemed fair enough to him, but he wasn't about to point that out. He had learned enough in his lifetime to know that you didn't point out to a female that she was making no sense. "We're here," he said, turning off the car. "Come inside and let's see if we can make sense of it together."
"Okay," she said, but she still looked worried.
Ty was starting to wonder if this was a bad idea. He was looking at Imogen's face and seeing tomorrow's regrets written on it.
She opened her mouth like she was going to speak again, then shut it.
He waited, but she didn't say anything so he prompted her. "What are you thinking, babe?"
"That I'm keyed up, and you're going to be disappointed."
Now he knew this was a bad idea. If Imogen went into sex with that mind-set, she was going to be nervous and inhibited. No matter what he did, it had the potential to wind up awkward and unsatisfying for her.
Damn it. He should have driven faster.
"I can guarantee that I will not be disappointed." Ty turned and brushed her still-damp hair off her cheek.
"I find you fascinating. And I don't want this to be a one-night stand that leaves you feeling like you can't even look me in the eye next time we see each other."
She opened her mouth, but Ty leaned over and gave her a soft kiss to stave off any protests. "So I'm going to get out of the car now, and I will call you tomorrow and hope like hell that you'll agree to go to dinner with me."