Steel Lust

by Jayne Kingston

  She waved him off. “Not at all.” She reached for him, took him by the hips and pulled him close, looking up his body after giving the bulge still straining against his zipper a suggestive glance. “Maybe you could show me the hip roll thing now since she’s made herself at home.”

  Norma Jean huffed out a sigh and rolled onto her side with her back to them.

  “Well, I guess we could—”

  But Joy was already up and leading him out of the room by the hand.

  Chapter Eleven

  “See? Now those are the kind of people you want to see in amateur porn, not the skank with ingrown hairs on her badly shaved pussy, sucking off an old guy with saggy balls and a pot-belly.”

  Joy stopped browsing the shots of Jamie and Leni she’d just transferred from her camera to her computer and turned to her assistant.

  “‘Excuse me sir, but it looks like you have an awfully big late fee,’” Kelly said in a breathy porn voice. “‘I don’t think I can let you have those books until you…take care of this.’” Kelly puffed out her chest. In a deep voice she said, “‘I don’t have any cash on me right now, darlin’. Maybe we can work this out…’” She made a smarmy porn face. “‘Another way.’” She faked taking off glasses with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “‘Why, what did you have in mind…stud?’”

  Joy lowered her eyebrows and turned back to her computer.

  “How long has Brandon been out of town?” she asked.

  Kelly slumped into the chair next to her. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Everything turns into a porn scene when he’s been gone longer than a week.”

  “I pick him up from the airport at seven tonight. And he’d better not be jet-lagged because he’s totally getting the naughty librarian treatment when we get home. Wow.”

  Joy had clicked on her favorite shot of the day.

  “Jesus, he’s pure, raw animal, isn’t he?” Kelly asked, meaning Jamie.

  He’d talked Leni into taking off her shirt to show off her nipple piercings. It turned out her tits were pretty hot too—small but firm and high with heavier-gauge hoops held closed by deep red glass beads that contrasted beautifully with her smooth, ivory skin.

  In the picture he was standing behind her, her back to his chest. She had her arms around his neck and her head turned to the side. He’d been covering her breasts with his hands, giving her time to change her mind before he’d slid them up the undersides of her arms, exposing her. The killer shot had come when he’d looked directly into the camera with the dirtiest cat-that-ate-the-canary grin she’d ever seen.

  “Yeah, I’d kill for video of those two being leaked to the Internet,” Kelly sighed.

  Joy dropped the picture into her editing file and moved on to several of Leonardo.

  “So, things are going pretty well with you and the rock star,” Kelly observed, going back to putting lenses in their cases.

  Joy shrugged. “For now.”

  “Oh here we go. What’s wrong with this one?”

  Joy turned to face her again. “What does that mean?”

  “You always find something wrong with every guy you date so you don’t have to let him in close enough to have a relationship.”

  Joy laughed one short, derisive laugh and shook her head. Kelly had no idea how much she’d opened up to Leonardo compared to the men she’d dated in the past.

  “What? Do you think I’m off-base here?”

  “No,” Joy admitted. “Not at all. I can see where you would get that idea, but there isn’t anything wrong with him.”

  Which worried her more than if he’d been the biggest creep she’d ever met.

  “So what’s with the ‘for now’ nonsense? You think he’s not serious about you?” She put the lens cases in a wire basket.

  She clicked on a close-up of Leonardo and his face filled her computer screen, every nuance of the deep-sea blue of his eyes, the fine line of his nose and his beautiful mouth coming into vivid detail. Even in pictures he made her heart thump and her body go hot. She loved the way those eyes looked at her when it was just the two of them, the dirty things he said and did with that mouth, the way his blond hair fell around his face when he was above her.

  “Where’d you go just now?” Kelly asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

  Back to bed, that’s where.

  “It’s only been a few weeks, and he’s probably going to have a summer filled with groupies,” she muttered, closing out of what she was doing. “What’s going on between him and me is not that serious.”

  But that was a lie and she knew it. She was up to her eyeballs in crazy about him.

  “It looks pretty serious from where I’m standing,” Kelly observed.

  Joy looked up with a smile, but Kelly wasn’t joking anymore.

  “Whether he knows it or not, he’s serious. It’s in the way he looks at you, the way he talks to you. All those things in your head, the age difference, the fact that he lives two states away, are just things in your head. They don’t matter to him, and they shouldn’t matter to you either.”

  As if on cue, the door opened and Leonardo came into her studio with Norma Jean.

  “Were your ears ringing?” Kelly asked cheerfully, bending to greet Norma Jean when he let go of her leash and she trotted over to them.

  He gave Joy a puzzled look. “Should they have been?”

  She smiled, her stomach fluttering at the sight of him. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Are you coming out with us tonight?” he asked Kelly.

  “Oh no,” Kelly stood and Norma Jean came around Joy’s desk to greet her next. “I have a fiancé to pick up from the airport in a few hours.”

  He shrugged. “Bring him too. The more the merrier.”

  “He’s been out of town a week and a half,” she told him pointedly.

  “Ah.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I see.”

  Kelly turned to Joy. “I have a naughty librarian costume to put together before I have to battle traffic to the airport, so I’m going to bug out now. ’kay?”

  Joy laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Late morning?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

  “Whenever you get here is fine.”

  Leonardo shook his head at her as the door closed behind Kelly.

  “You are such a pushover.”

  She stood and came around the desk. “Am not.”

  “Does she always get her way with you like that?”

  She slid her hands up his chest, reveling in the warm solidity of him. “The rules around here are pretty loose to begin with.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “Does that mean there will be more desk sex?”

  A shiver racked her body at the memory of the quick, hot fuck they’d had the day he’d come to take her back to Ohio to get her car.

  “I’m still trying to get my legs back from breakfast sex. Ooh…” She sighed and brought her arms around his neck to steady herself as his mouth moved to her ear. “And I need to take a shower before we go out tonight,” she protested weakly, her eyes rolling shut and he bit gently on her earlobe.

  “Can I help you wash those hard-to-reach places?” His tongue slid down her neck.

  “Jesus.” She clutched his hair as he grazed the curve where her neck met her shoulder with his teeth. “You can have the easy ones too if you want,” she panted.

  “We should go back to your place so I can get started.” He brushed his lips over her now heated skin. “It might take me a while to get to all of them.”

  She pulled on his hair until he raised his head and looked at her. “Yes please.”

  * * * * *

  “I like your friends,” Joy told Leonardo, leaning close to him and speaking below the din of everyone else talking at the table.

  He smiled and slid his hand over her thigh. “You fit right in.”

  “They make it easy,” she said, widening her eyes as his hand moved a little too high. “Do you think Oscar
feels strange being the only single guy at the table?”

  Lust for Life’s third partner—who was just as gorgeous as Leonardo and Jamie in his own dark-eyed, long-haired, bearded and tattooed way—was seated at the opposite end of the table from them. He’d been mostly quiet throughout the photo shoot, dinner and now drinks. When he did speak it was worth it to listen. He was hysterically funny with the best kind of laid-back, dry sense of humor.

  “I don’t think Oz ever feels strange. He’s the coolest guy I know. If he decides he wants to pair up with someone, he will,” he assured her. He looked up and past her, and the warmth drained out of his eyes. “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered.

  She knew who she was going to see before she looked.

  Bruce and his wife had just come through the door and were being greeted by the hostess. Deb spotted Joy instantly and split from her husband to come over and say hello. With her gut churning at the sight of Bruce twice in as many days, Joy stood and hugged Deb, whom she adored despite the fact that she’d dragged her rotten husband over with her.

  To make matters worse, Leonardo was standing, shaking Bruce’s hand as though they were long lost friends.

  “Wow, you look terrific,” Deb said, holding Joy at arm’s length. “All rosy-cheeked and gorgeous as ever.”

  The knot in Joy’s stomach softened. Because of Deb’s father’s relationship to her parents as their friend and music producer, she’d known Deb Lane-Allen all of her life. Even though there was more than ten years’ difference in their ages, she’d always been good to Joy and her sisters. Their families had spent many vacations together when Joy had been young. Deb had always played games with them, taught them how to swim and ride horses, and then how to wear makeup when they were old enough.

  She was married to the biggest asshole walking the planet, but she was also one of the sweetest, most generous women Joy knew. The music industry was packed full of jealous, spiteful, hugely competitive people who just barely qualified as human beings, but Deb still managed to remain untouched by it all.

  “I was just going to say it looks like Italy agreed with you,” Joy said, having heard she and Bruce had spent the month of March there, and hugged her again. “This is my boyfriend Leonardo.” Joy started with surprise at how easily the word boyfriend had rolled off her tongue. “Deb used to babysit my sisters and me while our parents went out on the town in Italy and Greece,” she explained to Leonardo.

  “And L.A., London, Paris,” Deb added, taking Leonardo’s hand.

  “You should join us,” Leonardo offered.

  Joy gave him a wide-eyed look, but he didn’t seem to notice. He glanced at Jamie instead and something unspoken passed between them. Something that raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

  “I don’t think so,” Bruce said easily. The look he was giving Leonardo was ice-cold.

  “No really,” Leonardo challenged, his smile brightening. “How often does a guy get to talk to one of the most respected businessmen in the music industry?” He pulled out one of the two chairs Jo and Gabe had vacated earlier—with the excuse they wanted to enjoy a rare, baby-free night in a hotel room—that were conveniently located between him and Jamie. “I promise I’ll only talk shop for a little while.”

  “I think it sounds like a wonderful idea,” Deb said, laying her hand on Bruce’s arm, her touch showing her husband she’d made up his mind for him. “You’re a musician?” she asked Leonardo, taking the chair that had been his when he held it for her, putting her between him and Joy. And Bruce between him and Jamie.

  “I’m a singer,” he told her and then made introductions around the table.

  “He’s being modest,” Jamie said as they all sat. “He also plays piano and guitar.”

  “It’s not too awful when he gets behind a drum set either,” Oz added, sending a ripple of laughter through the group.

  “His band is going on a pretty major tour this summer,” Leni chimed in.

  Joy looked at Leonardo. She could only assume Leni was talking about Grind opening for 30 Seconds to Mars, but he hadn’t said anything to her about it yet. She could tell by the regretful look on his face that he’d meant to tell her, so she raised her drink in toast as if she’d known all along.

  “To Leo and Grind getting their big break,” she called out, and everyone cheered.

  She was surprised that Bruce seemed genuinely interested in the fact that Grind was a blues-rock band, and that he appeared to get easily caught up in talking with Leonardo and his friends about music. It might have had something to do with the amount of drinks they were consuming and the lateness of the hour, but the more everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, the more she started to relax.

  And then Deb excused herself to use the restroom. Jamie leaned to Leni and whispered something in her ear, and suddenly Leni needed to use the restroom as well. And did Joy want to make it a threesome and come with her?

  Joy looked at Jamie for some kind of clue as to what had just happened, but he and Leonardo had both turned their attention back to Bruce and the conversation they were having.

  Joy stood slowly, pulse pounding through her ears and temper flaring. She followed Deb and Leni to the restroom, burning with anger at being played like a puppet and sick with fear about what might happen once she walked away from the table. Questions raced through her head about what Leonardo had told Jamie to make him act that way and what Leni may or may not have known.

  Had Leonardo told his friends about her family’s precious secret? Was it all about to blow up in her face?

  “Can I borrow your lipstick?” she asked Leni, holding her back as Deb went into a stall. “I love that color on you.”

  The music in the bathroom was loud, but Joy turned on the water as hard as it would run as Leni fished her lipstick out of her purse.

  “What was that all about?” she whispered as quietly as she could.

  Leni shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would they want us all away from the table?”

  Joy looked pointedly at the stalls farther down the bathroom. “I can’t say.”

  Leni’s eyes narrowed, clearly not understanding.

  All right, maybe she didn’t know.

  “Is something going on between you and…?” She tipped her head toward the stalls.

  “No.” Joy waved her hands, making sure she didn’t continue her thought out loud.

  Leni’s eyes widened. “Her hus—”

  Joy quickly shushed her.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Leni squeezed her hand and gave her a knowing smile. “They’re incredibly good at pest control. If that’s what you need.”

  Joy nodded. She could have been sick right there in the sink.

  The toilet flushed and Leni put her lipstick in Joy’s hand. Joy turned to the mirror and applied it with a shaking hand.

  “That color looks great on you,” Leni said brightly, turning off the water still running full force in the sink in front of Joy. “Don’t you think so?” she asked Deb when she joined them at the mirror.

  Deb gave her an assessing look. “It really does. Joy has the best skin,” she said to Leni. “She could pull off Day-Glo orange if she wanted.”

  Joy snorted nervously. “Remember the eighties?”

  “That’s right.” Deb laughed. “You did wear your share of orange when you were in what? Junior high?”

  “Sadly, my mother has pictures of me in blue and green as well.”

  “Those were fun days, weren’t they?” Deb met Joy’s eye in the mirror as she washed her hands. “It looks like these are fun days for you as well. That’s a gorgeous man you have there, Joy Ann.”

  “Inside and out,” Leni added.

  Deb nodded in agreement. “He’s talented, well-spoken, passionate about music. And he doesn’t seem to be checking out other women.”

  Joy groaned. She’d just described almost every one of her past boyfriends. The man-whore part, not talented and well-spoken.

  “Am I wr
ong?” Deb asked Leni.

  “Leo’s a great guy. I’ve known him a couple of years now, and I’ve never seen him act this way with a woman.” She gave Joy a knowing smile before she leaned in to freshen up her own lipstick. “I’d say he’s crazy about her.”

  “And she’s a little crazy about him?”

  “Okay, enough.” Joy blotted her lips with the paper towel in her hands. “I haven’t stepped out of the room. No talking about me as if I’m not here,” she chided playfully.

  Deb laughed. “Let’s go out and see if Bruce has signed him to the record label yet.”

  Joy didn’t know whether to be horrified or hopeful about the idea, but she did feel significantly more at ease as they filed out of the bathroom and made their way back to the table. Oscar was sitting closer to the rest of them, but their group still looked easy and relaxed otherwise. Then Bruce looked up and made eye contact for a long, gut-wrenching moment and Joy could see all was not as well as it appeared.

  He stood as they approached, put a smile on his face for his wife and told her he was ready to leave. Deb hugged Joy again, told the table how lovely it was to have met them, and promised to call Joy for lunch sometime soon before Bruce led her away.

  Joy was shaking as she turned to Leonardo. “I’m ready to go home now too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Why are you so angry?”

  Leo caught the door as it swung closed in his face with alarming velocity, the heavy wood slamming against the heels of his hands with a nerve-tingling bang.

  “Joy.” He stepped inside and locked the door behind him. Steeling himself, he took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the couch.

  Her bedroom door slammed.

  Norma Jean came running out of the spare bedroom and dashed into the kitchen. He heard the scraping of kitchen chairs on ceramic tile as she hid under the table. Fuck.

  He took his time, making sure Norma Jean was calm before he headed down the hall to Joy’s door. He knew how she was when she was riled up, but that was in the context of sex. Digging her nails into his back or her teeth into his shoulder was one thing. He didn’t especially want to be on the wrong end of her temper.