by Warren, Rie
“You left your phone, I answered it.” The bag closed, she turned and stood. “Doing them. PS. You’re two hours late for your date with someone called M Delesseleine.”
Colder than fear, worse than shock, the instant loss of Avery immobilized him.
“Are you still whoring yourself out for money, sugah?”
Getting in her face because he’d rather deal with her fury than the grueling pain if she left him, he roared, “YES! Damn you, yes!”
Ave shrank back.
“You think I like it? Fucking those women? Getting bankrolled and bed-rolled by broads I couldn’t give a shit about? Do you think I wouldn’t rather be here, with you?” His fists clenched, released, clenched. “Who else is gonna pay the bills, huh? How else will I make this much, this fast, so I can still have time to study and finally get what I want!”
“How can you slut around every night with a new . . . what? What am I supposed to call them, Jase?” She sent a ringing slap to his cheek when he didn’t answer. “How can you fuck them when you’ve never made love to me?”
“I can’t be with you, Ave. I’m dirty inside.” His head bent, his whole body did too until he kneeled on the floor in front of her. Eyes shaded with loss, longing—the world of emotion inside them—found hers. “I’m too dirty for you.”
I put down my beer, inspected my hands. Oil stains were embedded beneath my short nails, turning the lines of my knuckles dark. Maybe I wasn’t good enough for Leelee. I wasn’t the smooth-talking Stone she’d met. I was just a car mechanic, a single dad . . . a lonely man.
“Have you forgotten I’m broken too? I’m broken without you.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What do you want?”
“I want you, Ave. Only you, always you . . .” He crawled closer.
She strained away from him. “Is that where you were tonight? Did you double book? Lose your calendar?”
“No.” His laugh held no mirth. Lifting his hands, he blew across bloodied, cracked knuckles. “I was kicking Duncan Locke’s ass, like I swore I would.” His heart found a new rhythm when she lifted his hand, kissing the swollen mess.
“You’re hurt.”
He hooked his discolored fingers under her chin. “Not as hurt as you. I’m sorry.”
“Did Duncan apologize?”
“Yeah, after he screamed like a girl. I only broke a couple ribs.” With his boots. Jase grinned, remembering the crunch of bones. “And his nose.”
“Why?”
“Because he took what wasn’t his. Because he tried to break you.” Jase’s throat closed tight and he wanted more of Ave’s hands, her embrace. He needed it to erase the image of her being fucked against her will. “Because you are a treasure. No one has that right. Fucking no one.”
“I’m whole with you, Jase.”
A thick choking sound preceded him crushing her to him.
I got up from bed and opened a window. The curtains flipped against my bare legs. Emotions similar to Jase’s spun through me until I crouched on the floor.
“You are so . . .” Ave’s words ran out for once.
“Stupid?”
She pressed small kisses all over his face, lastly to his lips. “So honorable.”
His gut clenched. All those women. Night after night. Premeditated fucks. Dollar signs and decimals instead of names and phone numbers was what they added up to. “I’m not. Those women, they’re jobs. I don’t have fun. I fuck and get off ’em, get out.”
Ave winced but stayed wrapped around him.
“I’ll stop. It’s just you, it’s only ever been you, Ave. Just forgive me, forgive me, please.”
“Yes. Always yes, Jase.” On her feet, she extended her hand. “Let’s clean you up, bruiser.”
After she’d cleansed his hands, she unbuttoned his shirt. He shivered when she traced the muscled mass of his pecs, a lone finger trailing through the line of brown hair that bisected his abs.
Ave breathed a laugh when his stomach muscles contracted under her touch. Half-lidded and heavy, that blue gaze found his. “Will you?”
“Stop? Yeah, I said I would.” He shuddered through a long groan as she pushed the shirt from his shoulders.
She stood back in her white shirt, which was his white shirt. Dropping her hands from him, she removed her pants and panties. His ears hummed, blood rushed to his groin, engorging him. Heavy, round breasts filled out his shirt in a way that made the masculine cut insanely fucking sexy.
Ave touched the buttons of his jeans, beneath which his cock stretched the faded fabric. “No, I meant, will you make love to me tonight, Jase?”
Avery popped the top button free, and this time her hands were sure.
* * *
He picked her up, which was good because her knees gave out. In the bedroom—their bedroom—he sat on the edge of the bed. “Finish what you started.”
A moan skipped from her throat. She knelt between his wide-open thighs and thumbed the last three buttons free.
Sounding harsh, Jase said, “Take my cock out, Ave.”
Oh God, this was what she’d wanted. Opening the jeans, her hand burrowed inside. He didn’t lift his hips or shift a muscle, he wouldn’t help her, she realized. Anticipation tightened her nipples into hard points and curled inside her belly. He groaned when she made contact, circling her fingers around his base, fingertips not meeting around that thick shaft. Lying on his belly, his cock was irresistible. The backs of her fingers glided up and then down while Jase watched, lips parted, breaths ragged.
“Stop. Stop, Ave, or I swear to fuck, I’ll come right now.”
With sudden violence—the best kind—Jase snapped forward and ripped her shirt open down the middle. “Better.” He bent her forward and sucked her nipples with long endless draws of his tongue and mouth.
Her hips circled in time with his teasing, biting sucks. Avery threw her head back, moaning uncontrollably. Jase released her. Riding his shaft within his fist, he wriggled free of his jeans. He flitted two fingertips across the clear liquid on the head of his cock and pushed them into her mouth.
The taste, his taste was indescribable. Salty. Sweet. Musk and man. Addictive.
He returned to stroking. “Show me your cunt.”
The words alone tied her in tight knots only he could release. She brought one leg up, placing her foot on the covers beside his hip.
He sat up, his face nearly at the juncture of her thighs. His breath spilled across her, followed by deep licks of his tongue. “So wet. For me?”
When Avery nodded, he sank her onto his lap. Coarse brown hair rasped against her thighs. His hands on her waist, his tongue trailing along her neck, he dragged her back and forth over the silky hot rod of flesh.
“Please now, Jase.”
“Yeah? Need me now?”
A whimper, that was all she could utter, but he knew. He pulled her with him all the way onto the bed. Her head rested against the pillows, her legs splayed. Their kisses were deep and drugging. And when he entered her, Avery could see, she could feel it was with tenderness so vast it drew from a well of deep emotion, not just desire and need.
“Feels like my first time, Jase.” Her lips strayed from his jaw to his mouth.
He stretched all the way over her, filling her deep. “Then it is. I’m your first. Your first lover.”
His words catapulted heat and hope inside of her heart.
Her lips pressed to his, she breathed, kissed, gasped. “First love.”
“Only love, Ave. My only love.”
* * *
Three weeks after the convention, the kid had been broken of his sugar habit, but I still held onto my Leelee addiction. I ditched a different one instead. The minute I’d arrived back in Mt. Pleasant, I’d turned over a new, non-man-slut leaf. I took myself off the Friday night fuck market. When I went to bars, I didn’t pick up chicks. I sat with my drink and stared at the wall. And I remembered one night, one song by Chet Baker, and a gorgeous woman in my arms.
Getting an earf
ul from Janice over the phone and Javier in person, I was double-teamed into setting up a Twitter account, hoping Leelee might make contact. The tweets poured in and the texts did too. I was followed by Devon, Jacqueline, Felicity, Missy, Fred, and the rest, as well as many friends I seemed to have picked up in Atlanta, and over the years around home. I hankered after every secondhand word on Leelee.
As for Nicky, our fake break-up hit the social network radar and his novels went supernova viral. He’d had to deal with the fallout from the Hens—two years of deception didn’t sit well with them. Until he found out they’d been placing bets on his sexuality the entire time. After he learned about that little piece of grifting, he was golden. I didn’t see him much, and I missed him, too. He’d dived back into the whirlwind of writing, playing catch up, deadlines . . . and he had his own stalker-fan to deal with: Nicky’s Chicky from the Con.
Unlike the constant tweets from @Felicity, @Dev, @Jaque_line, I got nada from Leelee. I understood why. She’d been burned by a guy who’d come out as gay weeks before their wedding. I’d come out as not gay the same time as ten tons of shit fell on her head.
LaForge had been named and shamed, his agency going down in flames. Indicted for harassment and extortion, his career was dragged under and drowned as others followed Leelee’s suit. All this I heard over the goddamn Twitterverse, which was my only lifeline to the woman I wanted an entire life with.
Someone else managed to track me down. It wasn’t hard, just follow the fucking bouncy cursor. @The_JGem tweeted me, from ten miles away:
U’ll b cover 4 August LitLiv Mag, yes? Gud. Coming with photag 06-30 2 Stone’s
The bastard little birdy didn’t allow me enough characters to express how much I vetoed that idea. My phone calls and messages to her went unanswered because Jules Gem knew she had me by the balls.
The dreaded day arrived. Punctual as ever, she swooped into the parking lot with a photographer in tow. She climbed out of her SUV, transformed from a bulldog in a cocktail dress to a beach girl in a sundress. She still had bite though.
“Stone!” She imparted two fancy air kisses. Snapping her fingers at the shaggy-haired photographer, she said, “Scout it out, pronto. I need natural lighting”—she paused, squinting at the interior of the Pit—“and check the meter in that area. We could get some amazing affects from the overhead glow. Yes?”
During that day, the definition of hell was Jules posing me, oiling me up and buttoning me down. She ordered me into a perfectly tailored suit she’d pulled out of a bag and my own fedora. She told me to bend over and show her some ass while I had my head stuck under my Camaro’s hood. All this was because of great juxtaposition between the expensive suit, my dirty hands, and the all-man mechanic interior of the Pit.
“Outfit change!” She briskly clapped her hands.
I backed out from around the support rods, whipping off the tie that hung loose around the open collar of my dress shirt. Greasing up the nice suit on purpose was liberating, especially since it didn’t belong to me. Claps, catcalls, hoots ’n’ hollers greeted me. I flushed scarlet to the roots of my hair. My photo shoot had attracted a ridiculous crowd filling the entire parking lot. Fuck my life, right? The old cronies grinned with toothless gums. The odd assortment of customers whooped it up. Every now and then I thought I saw a glimpse of stunning orange-gold hair, but that was stupid. No way was Leelee here.
I definitely spotted a few past conquests though. That alone made me rush to the office for my outfit change. Returning in coveralls, I wore the top looped around my waist to reveal a white bro-tank underneath. Jules subjected me to a couple more hours of “pose with your arms flexed”, “tank top off and close up on the tat”.
For the final shots of the afternoon, I loosened up, remembering my easy-come, easy-go Stone persona. “Hey, Miss Gem. How’s about I pull the top of my coveralls back on but leave ’em open and keep the tank top off?” The air screeched with whistles and screams. I tugged the zipper at my crotch. “And maybe lower this a little too?”
“Like at Guys with Balls?” Jules asked.
I slid the zipper low enough to tease, reaching my hand inside. A tangle of pubes pushed over the top of the dark blue uniform. I couldn’t hear myself think through the roar of the onlookers. Fuckers better remember to bring their cars back here next time they needed an oil change after the free show I was giving.
“Purrrfect.” Jules grinned with all her teeth. “Now spread those big thighs, Stone. Yes. Lean back, open the top more, more, more, yes. Elbows on the hood, head tilted back, eyes closed. Hawt-hawt-hawt. Now hold it, hold it, think about . . . Leelee Songchild, right between your legs.”
Of fuck. That did it. I sprang a boner in the blink of an eye, and me, like that, all spread out and horny? Click-click-click. Yeah, I was gonna have Leelee exactly this way when I won her back.
That was the last shot. Good thing too because I needed to get back to my office to make a come-shot, pretty goddamn quick. Stumbling through the emptying garage bays, I barely made it to the privacy of closed doors before I pulled out my cock with a deep groan.
Getting right down to a quick pump action on my shaft, I leaned against the desk.
A loud knock-knock hit the door.
I ignored it. My jaw clenched, my thighs shook. My cock throbbed. I was not going to be interrupted like every single time I tried to jerk off at LitLuv.
“Yo, Stone!” Ray pounded on the door.
“Motherfucker. Is the place on fire?”
“No, but—”
“Are we getting robbed?” I shouted.
“No, but—”
“‘No buts’ is right!” I cracked the door and shoved my head out. “I need five minutes, man. Five. Because my dick is gonna explode.”
Ray stood his ground. “The thing is there’s a lady outside, lookin’ for ya.”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me. What? Another broad who wants my autograph on her tits? One of the chicks who just watched the photo shoot?”
“All I know is she’s a hot piece in a pretty dress. You might wanna get to her before one of the guys snaps her up.” He whistled as he walked away.
I slammed the door then slammed my forehead against it. I hiked the coveralls over my hips and managed to zip up around my raging erection. Striding down the hall and behind the counter, I tied the sleeves around my hips. I’d forgotten my fucking tank top in the office.
Screw it.
Cutting through the bays, I exited the building. Sweat flashed across my skin as the sun pounded down on me.
I’d almost reached the benches hidden beyond the Coke machines when Ray leaned out behind me. “Forgot to say, killer heels, man.”
Killer heels. The last time I’d seen a pair of them was on Leelee. I didn’t reckon I wanted to see them on anyone else but her.
Jules pulled up beside me and rolled down her window. “Now we’re even.”
“What?”
She did the kissy-kissy-face-smooch thing and smiled. “Besides, I just love a perfect HEA. Don’t you?”
“Huh?”
She pointed behind me before driving off.
I swiped a forearm across my brow and turned around. I didn’t move another muscle. “Leelee?”
Seventeen
Hell in High Heels
JESUS CHRIST, LEELEE LOOKED good. Leelee looked amazing. Here. In Mt. Pleasant, at my garage where I’d hoped to have her but never expected her to show up.
Scrubbing a hand across my jaw, I groaned because I hadn’t even made a halfway decent scrape of my stubble that morning, per Jules’s instructions. I walked toward Leelee, head cocked, scoping her out.
She sauntered to me, expression unreadable, checking me out.
Her hips shifted in the tight, knee-length, call-me-secretary skirt. Her tits moved too, those nice full handfuls swaying with every step closer. Her hair loose and down her back, just the way I liked it, shimmered in the sunshine. Perspiration clung to my temples but the flush on my
face came from the vision in front of me.
In four-inch, taupe, patent leather stilettos.
Hell on wheels? She was totally hell in high heels, wearing a dress that worked its way over her banging bod like my hands itched to do. The lightest yellow with lilac flowers and little sleeves that bared her shoulders, her collarbone, and a great big mouthwatering amount of cleavage. My eyes bored into her. My cock made itself known. My arms flexed, ready to grab her.
The boys hung out of the open bays like a barrel of monkeys. Their yeehaws and whistles filled the air.
Slicing my eyes sideways, I said, “Unless you wanna get fired right here, right now, get back to work and keep your traps shut.”
Leelee stopped two feet away from me. She was half-in, half-out of the shadows of the awning. “So, this is you.” Sweet as ever, rich as honey, her voice hit me in the groin.
Once again, I was reminded of my small-town business, my scruffy appearance. Jules had dirtied me up with grease stains for visual pizzazz and I hadn’t cleaned up yet, too intent on beating the come out of my cock.
I scratched the back of my neck, thinking she could’ve just tweeted me to give me the old heave-ho instead of wasting the plane fare. “Yeah.”
“Foreign auto imports?” The breeze picked up, flipping red tendrils of hair over her shoulder.
“Like I said. I lied. I’m sorry, ya know?” I stared at the low neckline of her dress, drowning in the sight of her rocking body before I met her eyes, lingering over her lips on the way up.
“Did I ever tell you how much I like the smell of a garage?” The wind changed direction, delivering her voice to me. A low, silky-rough temptation that slid like moist lips along my skin.
Oh shit . . .
Leelee came closer. Her movements were pure seduction. “How much I like a man who knows he’s a man? Who protects his woman and”—closest now, her breath warmed the hollow of my throat—“knows how to satisfy her but still has a big heart beneath all the raunchy, macho instincts?”