The Taming of the Bastard by Lindy Dale Page B

Sometimes I go to
their place—especially if they have furniture.”
    “But you’ve
slept with lots of girls?” A man who could do the type of things
with his tongue that Sam did had to have had tonnes of
practise.
    “A few.”
    A few. Clearly,
as Mel had stated, Sam was not one to kiss and tell. But what did
he mean? How many were a few? Ten? Fifteen? Fifty? As if some
irrational hormone had triggered at the words, suddenly, I had to
know. I needed to see that magical number in my mind’s eye to
reassure myself that I was not going to go to the internet and find
I was another entry in his blog of adventures while shagging around
Australia.
    “So, your
ballpark figure would be?”
    “I dunno, two
hundred or so.”
    I stiffened
under the doona. He had to be exaggerating. He’d have to be having
sex every minute of the day to rack up that number. Even James Bond
wouldn’t have had time for two hundred women and he’d been doing it
for nearly half a century. Sam was only thirty. “You’re having me
on. Aren’t you?”
    “No. What about
you?”
    Eyes narrowed,
I studied his face, not sure if he was taking the piss. But if he
could sleep with two hundred women I could turn back the virginity
clock a decade or so. All was fair in love and war. “I was a virgin
until an hour ago.”
    “Yeah. And I’m
the captain of the Wallabies. Come on, tell the truth.” His mouth
covered a spot near my left nipple and he began to tease. “If you
don’t, you’ll suffer the consequences.”
    “I don’t know,
I can’t remember.”
    “Liar. Girls
always remember that stuff.” His teeth nipped into the skin of my
nipple. It was not helping.
    I pushed his
head away. “I can’t think, you’re distracting me.”
    “Liar. You’ll
pay if you don’t tell.” His teeth returned to my flesh, biting only
hard enough to confuse me further. He sucked and I went spiralling
into oblivion.
    “Okay, okay.
Ten, thirteen. Something like that. Now, stop.”
    Sam ran his
tongue over my breast. Then he paused. His eyes grew larger than
I’d ever seen them. He rolled to sitting and pushed a hand through
his hair. His eyebrows knitted in confusion or possibly anger.
“Thirteen? You’ve had sex with thirteen blokes? Fuck
me.”
    I wished I’d
never told him. Talk about double standards. Lying next to me was
the man who’d seen more naked women’s behinds than a Bendon underwear sale and he was implying I was a slut. I knew this would
happen. I should have kept my mouth shut.
    Tears pricked
at the corners of my lids. I could feel a quiver building in my
lip. I was going to cry. I had wanted this time to be special and
now Sam was making me feel like shit. “AND?” I spat, wiping the
back of my hand across my eyes. He was such an arsehole.
    Sam flopped
back to the floor. His laugh was devilish, his amusement at his own
joke complete as he fell about amongst the pillows. “Jeez, Mill’
you should see the look on your face. It was a joke. I don’t care
how many blokes you’ve had it off with. I was only teasing. Don’t
go getting all emotional on me.”
    I glared at
him. “You bastard. I thought you meant it.”
    “Well, you have
been a bit of a tart,” he laughed.
    “You can talk,
man-whore.”
    Reaching over,
Sam gathered me to him. “What we did before doesn’t matter to me,
Mill’. The past is the past. This is now and you’re the most
important thing in my world. Besides,” he added to no one in
particular, “I had to sleep with every chick in the pub
while I was waiting for you to get your act together. My sperm
would’ve dried up if I didn’t. So I guess that makes us even.”
    He had to be
joking. That was truly taking it too far. Pushing myself to a
sitting position, I grabbed the doona from him and wrapped myself
in it. Bugger if he was cold. “You’ve slept with every female staff
member at The Lederhosen ?”
    He had the
decency to look a little sheepish. “Yep. Some of them weren’t that
good either, and