Immersed in Pleasure Read Online Free PDF Page A

hand. This might go down in history as his oddest first date ever. In some respects the date progressed very well—already he’d achieved access to Xenia’s bed. But in other respects he imagined his friends scoffing at his current activity. He and Xenia sat cross-legged on her covers, a deck of cards between them as they played Go Fish! and talked.
    “I have connections too.” Derek stretched out on his side. “My father’s the deputy mayor.”
    “The governor of Vermont offered me fifty thousand dollars for my virginity. So there.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
    “Are you serious?”
    “No.” Xenia laid down a book of cards. “It was Connecticut.”
    Groaning, Derek rolled onto his back.
    “If 50K and a governorship doesn’t do it for you, then I have no chance, right?” he asked, still smiling.
    “The governor of Connecticut never played Go Fish! with me. And he’s ugly. You aren’t. Alanna said you look like Paul Walker. I have no idea who that is, but apparently it’s a compliment.”
    “Well, you look like…” Derek tried to find someone beautiful enough to compare Xenia to but came up short. “You look like you. And that’s the best compliment I’ve got.”
    Blushing, she looked down and rearranged her cards in girlish nervousness. Part of him wanted to kiss her again and kiss her for a good three hours. But although he sat on her bed, he didn’t quite feel comfortable making a move on her. The virginity thing he considered only a small stumbling block. Xenia’s three roommates constituted a slightly larger problem. Derek had wondered how Kingsley could be so sure his mermaids behaved themselves. And Urs said they lived in gorgeous apartments the club paid for, and he had to admit Xenia’s apartment, located in the building next to Fathoms and Cirque du Nuit, qualified as gorgeous. Expansive and elegant, the apartment had hardwood floors, lofted ceilings and—
    “Derek, seriously, we don’t care how awesome the apartment was,” Christian interrupted.
    “Sorry, sorry.” Derek held up his hands in surrender. “Mom’s a real estate agent. Crown molding is in my genes. Anyway, the apartment was amazing but annoying because Xenia had three roommates. And all four beds were scattered around the big main room.”
    “That’s insidious. I guess that’s one way of keeping your mermaids virginal—put them in dorms with chaperones.” Mark shook his head. “This Kingsley Edge guy is an evil genius.”
    “Oh, God, Kingsley. We’ll get back to him in a minute,” Derek said.
    Xenia beat Derek at their first and second game of Go Fish!. As they played they talked about everything and nothing. Derek learned Xenia grew up right on the ocean.
    “Probably why I’m still a virgin,” she told him as she shuffled her card deck. “My parents run a bed-and-breakfast on Hilton Head Island. Everyone I met was a temporary resident. They’d stay a week maybe, or a month at the most and then be gone again. You learned to guard your heart, not get too attached. The only thing that ever seemed permanent to me was the ocean.”
    She’d opened her heart a little to him, so he told her about his brief marriage that had ended in disaster and had temporarily shattered his faith in women. He even told her about his two best friends, Mark and Christian, who’d helped him through that nightmare three years ago.
    “Aw…I’m touched, man,” Mark said, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.
    “Shut up,” Christian ordered. “I have a feeling things are about to get torrid again.”
    “You are correct, sir,” Derek said.
     
    At about three in the morning he and Xenia gave up on the cards and simply lay on her bed talking while Derek played with her hair. At three-fifteen, he decided he didn’t care if one of her roommates—a Nubian goddess named Alara—sat reading in her bed across the room. Leaning over Xenia, he kissed her long and slow. With a sigh of pleasure she wrapped her arms around his