Use Somebody Read online

  USE SOMEBODY

  From an anonymous fantasy blog to a married couple talking about taking the next step, Use Somebody showcases a collection of love, passion and personal discovery from New York Times Bestselling Author Megan Hart.

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  This Is What I Want

  Co-workers Eve and Lane discover a mutual, online interest – but can their imaginations make it into the real world?

  * * *

  The Challenge

  Katie and Dean have been friends for a long time, but when each of them fails at moving forward in their romantic lives, they pose a challenge to each other. Who can satisfy the other first? And what does that mean for their friendship…and the men they each desire?

  * * *

  The Experiment

  A thousand dollars is a lot of money, so Melissa and Matt agree to a special Psych Department experiment. What begins with handholding is meant to lead them toward more, but can science prove love? Or is it the other way around?

  * * *

  Seven Sweets and Seven Sours

  Mary has loved Hannah since they were girls, but Mary’s decision to leave the only life she’s ever known will change everything for them.

  * * *

  Taking the Leap

  Sam and Jenna, both bridesmaids in the same wedding, have never met before. Instant sparks fly, but is this a chance for something real, or is it just a bridal party fling?

  * * *

  Layover

  Julia and Graham met a year ago during a work conference, and neither’s been able to forget the other since. When an unexpected delay leaves Julia with a layover in Graham’s city, she decides to take a chance and see if what’s been building virtually can happen for real.

  * * *

  Reason Enough

  Elle and Dan have been married for a little while, and he’s talking about maybe having a baby. Elle’s not sure if she’s ready for the change having children would bring. She loves Dan. She loves their life. Is it too risky to add a new layer to their family?

  Use Somebody

  A Collection of Short, Sexy Romances

  Megan Hart

  USE SOMEBODY

  Chaos Publishing

  Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2019 Megan Hart

  Chaos Edition, License Notes

  * * *

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  * * *

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-940078-90-8

  print ISBN: 978-1-940078-91-5

  Contains the stories This Is What I Want, The Challenge, The Experiment, Taking the Leap, Seven Sweets and Seven Sours, Layover and Reason Enough

  photo credit: arekmalang, korionov

  cover: Chaos

  Contents

  THIS IS WHAT I WANT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  THE CHALLENGE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  THE EXPERIMENT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  SEVEN SWEETS AND SEVEN SOURS

  Seven Sweets and Seven Sours

  TAKING THE LEAP

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  LAYOVER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  REASON ENOUGH

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Also by Megan Hart

  About the Author

  THIS IS WHAT I WANT

  Chapter 1

  This is what I want.

  Your hands make circles around my ankles. They shackle me for but a moment before your fingertips move upward over the edge of bone, the dip and hollow of muscles and flesh. Over my calves and the prickly stubble of my knees, where they linger to stroke the soft, smooth underside. Those untouched places. Your fingers linger there, seeking creases.

  Your thumbs move up the sun-warmed flesh of my thighs, which I part for you beneath summer’s bright golden light. Like the breeze that twitches the ends of my hair, your fingers drift along my skin. Moving higher.

  This is what I want. You. Touching me.

  You take the time to trace the faint white line, the place where once my flesh parted beneath the edge of a razor wielded by an unsteady hand. You don’t ask about this scar. You ask nothing, say nothing. You have no voice but that which I grant you, and so far I haven’t given you permission to speak.

  You kneel in front of me, and this is where I like you. How I like you. On your knees, my body aligned for your worship and your hands smoothing their constant upward path.

  This is what I want, your breath on my skin. Your fingers parting me. Your mouth finding the sweet, small pearl of my clitoris. I want your tongue there, and the pressure of your lips. I want you to lick me as I stand over you, you upon your knees.

  I want you to worship me.

  Chapter 2

  “Hold that ‘vator!” Eve Grant called across the lobby, already knowing it was a futile request. The elevator was super-slow and had a cranky habit of stalling, forcing the employees of Digiquest to trudge up and down the stairs. Nobody was willing to contribute to a breakdown by stopping the doors once they were closing, not even at five of nine and knowing she was only hollering because if she had to wait for the elevator or take the stairs, she would be late clocking in.

  Almost nobody.

  A hand appeared at the last second, sliding between the slow-closing door and the wall. The elevator door bounced against it before grudgingly sliding back open. Eve grabbed up her bag and ran. Her flight wasn’t dignified or graceful, but she wasn’t about to let the chance pass.

  “Thanks,” she said as she hopped into the elevator just before the door closed, finally. “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  Lane DeMarco, six-feet-four of gorgeous and a half-inch of fantastic, smiled at her. Eve automatically smiled in return. Lane’s smile was hard
to resist.

  Eve and Lane had been hired at the same time – she in customer service and he in IT. They’d been through the battlefield of employee orientation together and two years of office picnics and holiday parties, but it hadn’t made them anything more than acquaintances. He was just the sort of guy who’d flirt enough to flatter but not freak out, the kind who’d smile and hold the elevator for someone. Anyone. It didn’t make her special or anything.

  Lane lifted an insulated cup to his lips and sipped. Watching his throat work as he swallowed was bad enough, but when his tongue slid out along his lips to swipe away the sweet, creamy coffee, she had to look away.

  “That smells good,” she said about the coffee, because the only thing worse than making inane conversation was standing in awkward silence.

  Where were her words when she needed them? Why could she speak to strangers online, share with them her most intimate secrets, yet she couldn’t do more than mumble with Lane? Why was he so…unattainable?

  Lane swirled the liquid in the cup and sipped again. “It’s called a Mocha Mint. I got it from the new place next door, The Beanery. Have you tried it?”

  “No.” Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she’d run out of the house without breakfast. Again. She really needed to get up earlier if she was going to blog before work. “I’ll have to check it out.”

  The elevator dinged. One more floor to go. It really might have been faster to take the stairs…but then she’d have missed out on the exquisite torture of riding up with Lane.

  The door opened on their floor. Lane hung back to allow Eve to exit first, depriving her of the last chance to ogle his ass. Shit. Was he ogling hers? Eve glanced over her shoulder but found Lane’s gaze trained on her face. Was that better or worse? Worse, she decided, but not unexpected. Lane might be the star of most of her naughty online fantasies, but to him she was just another computer to fix.

  As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “are you still having that problem with your chat windows freezing up?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She hadn’t forgotten about the support ticket she’d put in. Lane wasn’t the only IT guy on staff, but she’d been hoping he’d be the one to take the task.

  “I’ll swing by in a bit to check it out, okay?”

  She nodded and gave him a little wave as she watched him saunter away. Guh. He’s all that and a bag of chips.

  In her pod Eve tossed her bag onto the spare chair and shook her mouse to wake the computer, then logged in quickly, barely making it before the clock clicked from 9:00 to 9:01 and made her officially late. Her queue was already five customers deep, the blinking cursor an impatient reminder that she was here to work, not fantasize about Lane DeMarco, no matter how tempting it was. Her fingers tapped away at the keys that would bring up the first customer from her queue. She had a minute or two of prewritten responses to get through before she had to actually engage her mind.

  Some poor sap was having a dickens of a time figuring out how to get his wireless devices to talk to one another, a problem so common Eve had no trouble solving it. She finished the chat with the last of the scripted phrases and logged off. Immediately a new chat box opened and she started all over. It was another easy chat with a simple solution. The faceless person on the other side of the Internet didn’t abuse emoticons or need the instructions repeated more than once, and Eve worked her way through the necessary dialogue without issue. Unfortunately, just before she inserted the text asking if she’d completed the chat to the customer’s satisfaction, the chat window froze. She tried every key combination she knew and finally got it working again, but the customer had already logged off. Damn. It could mean a survey response of unsatisfactory for her, maybe, which wouldn’t look good on her performance statistics, but she didn’t have time to worry because the next window demanded her attention and she got back to work.

  Lather, rinse, repeat.

  Four hours later her stomach still rumbled and she desperately needed a bio break. She hadn’t even had time to do more than take a peek or two at her blog. The comments were coming in fast and furious but had to go unanswered, a fact that was killing her. She peeked again, satisfying herself with at least reading what people were saying, and pushed away from the computer with a stretch. She headed to the restroom and break room. The busy morning had kept her from pondering too much about what she’d write later tonight, but with the bathroom out of the way and the coffee and doughnut settling like stones in her gut, Eve had time to think about what waited for her at home.

  Most of the comments to her blog were one-liners or casual compliments. Praise for her writing, or the ideas she’d presented. A fair number would be from what she considered “admirers,” bloggers who got turned on by her entries and weren’t shy about telling her so. Every once in awhile she even earned a troll, someone who commented with the sole purpose of insulting her or her readers and taunting them into a battle of words. Eve never engaged trolls, simply deleted their comments without reply.

  Sometimes, though, she got something special. A fellow blogger, maybe, with similar tastes. Sometimes a particular comment turned into a spectacular dialogue and led her to places she hadn’t known she could go – or wanted to. Other times, someone new found her online persona and left a comment that led to another, and a friendship grew out of that small, random moment.

  She sipped the bad coffee and nibbled the sugary doughnut on her way back to her pod. Her pulse leaped a little, thinking of what they’d said and what they’d say, how they’d react, her faceless admirers.

  Her worshippers.

  Some, she knew, like Puppetboy1241, would rave about this morning’s blog. He always loved the ones in which she demanded homage. He’d already offered, privately, to be her slave not only online but in real life, too.

  Well, not hers, precisely. Not Eve’s. He wanted to be slave to Eris Apparent, the name she blogged under. It was a tempting offer and one she might have considered but for one small reason. A simple, silly and ridiculous reason, Eve thought as she rounded the corner into her pod. She stopped short at the sight of her computer screen, which she’d left open to her queue but was now back at the login screen, and the Mocha Mint cup, steam still curling lazily from the top, sitting on her desk. An unattainable reason.

  Lane DeMarco.

  Chapter 3

  This is what I want.

  You, surrounded by books. They teeter in towers ready to topple with a glance, and you’ve settled in the midst of them like a king looking over stacks of gold. Papers in piles make whispering noises when you shuffle them. The room smells of ink and paper. Of intellect.

  You’re bent over the desk, scribbling furiously. Your glasses have slipped down to the end of your nose, and I know you’ll push them up when you think of it, but for now your tongue is caught between your teeth as you concentrate. Your pen scratches on the paper, creating worlds with words.

  You’re lost to everything.

  Except me.

  I make no noise, but you lift your head anyway. As if you’ve scented me, and maybe you have. Among the smells of ink and paper, of dust, I carry the odor of roses, because that is how you imagined I would smell. I wear white, because that’s what you dreamed I would wear.

  I’m the princess of every fairy tale you’ve ever read. The maiden in the tower, the sleeping beauty, the cinder-smudged waif waiting for her prince. I am your desire made flesh, my blood the ink in your pen, my skin the crumpled softness of your parchment.

  You put down your pen. I glide to you on slippered feet, silent. There is room on your desk, when we make it. The sound of the books hitting the ground is very loud. Neither of us turn our heads to see the destruction. All you want to see is me.

  You reach for me. Your hands find all the places on my body you’ve spent long hours creating. You kiss me, soft and slow, and hold me as carefully as though I were built of glass.

  I sigh, as you want me to, when you push me onto your desk and lift the silk of my skirt over my t
highs. Your hands slide up my skin. Your mouth brushes the soft floss of my pubic curls, and your thumbs part me to your gaze.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  I have longed to hear your voice from your own mouth, to hear you say the words you’ve thus far only written. I like your voice. It’s low, deep. Rough like the rasp of a cat’s tongue. I shiver.

  You kiss between my legs as sweetly as you did my mouth. I arch into your embrace when you slide your arms under my shoulders. Your mouth finds my throat. My fingers rake your back when you enter me; your cry of surprise urges one from my lips. You push into me, nevertheless, and fill me with heat and pleasure.