Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3)

by S. Ann Cole

  The photo shoot director gushed about Xena’s cheekbones, while Xena kept ogling Danni. I opted not to inform her Danni cheered for the other team—at least not yet, because it was nice seeing her interested in someone other than that freakish, eyeliner-wearing Tex Laklin.

  We pitched at a white plastic table with white plastic chairs, me wearing a white robe hiding my bikini underneath, while the other two were impeccable: Xena in red bottom Louboutins, pencil jeans and a sheer polka-dot top, and Jessica in another flirty dress and heels.

  Xena, not surprisingly, did most of the talking as we ate, while Jessica did a lot of coy staring at my face, constantly finding a reason to touch me.

  “I think you have one of the most perfect faces I’ve ever seen,” Jessica mumbled, using her free hand to sweep aside the fresh Beyoncé curls I got for today’s glamour shoot. “And smoky eyes are perfect for you. Makes me wish I had black eyes like yours. They’re so…mysterious.”

  Never, in my entire life, had I heard anyone wish for black eyes.

  My gaze slid to Xena, pleading for help, to get this girl to stop touching me, but Xena merely grinned and stuffed a sushi roll in her mouth.

  “I’ve never heard anyone wish they had black eyes before; nothing distinct or interesting about them, but…thanks.”

  As her hand relocated from my shoulder to my forearm on the table, her other hand spearing a shrimp with her fork, she asked, “How tall are you?”

  I kind of needed my hand to eat, but I didn’t think she realized that. “Five ten.”

  “You’ve always wanted to be a model?”

  “Since my very first Barbie doll,” I told her. “When I was younger, I used to stretch fruit roll-ups out on the floor and pretend it was a runway for my dolls to walk on.”

  She giggled. “Now that’s passion!”

  Xena rolled her eyes and bit her lip, picking up that I was lying my tonsils out. It was like she had a bullshit radar or something.

  “Ice Steam’s coming back from The Big Apple tonight, right?” Xena asked Jessica, successfully getting the girl’s attention off me. “I need to have a word with your man, and his ass has been ignoring my calls for days now.”

  My cellphone buzzed.

  With my right hand still trapped under Jessica’s, I peered over at the screen to see it was a text from Xavier.

  “Yep, they’re scheduled to be back tonight,” Jessica answered. “But Davi won’t be back until tomorrow. He’s taking the opportunity to spend some time with his sister. What, he lost another bet with you and don’t wanna pay up?”

  I politely told Jessica I needed to borrow my hand for a minute, then picked up my phone to check the message.

  Xavier: Never told u, but I love the bracelet. Thank u.

  Me: U r most welcum, rocker of mine.

  Xavier: Really, Chino, I appreciate it. Wear it everywhere. Never had a chick buy me anything before. They’re usually always asking me for shit.

  “Uh, yeah, a bet,” Xena answered Jessica, but the tone of her voice said otherwise.

  Jessica sighed, as if Davian was a badly behaved child constantly disappointing her. “Davi doesn’t like losing, that’s his problem. He feels he must be number one in everything.”

  Me: It’s 30.

  Danni appeared at our table. “They need you in ten, Alina.”

  “Roger that.”

  Xavier: ??

  “Oh gawd,” Xena cried, staring up Danni with evident disappointment. “You’re a balls loving, clit hater, aren’t you?”

  I snickered, while Danni shrugged. I knew all it would take for Xena to figure it out was for Danni to open his mouth.

  Xena transferred narrowed eyes to me. “You saw me visualizing him naked and you couldn’t tell me he was a sperm guzzler?”

  Mimicking Danni, I shrugged.

  “What a waste of drool,” Xena sulked.

  Me: My trust fund. It’s 30 mil.

  “Hey, I’m nuts about a guy who’s having a hard time admitting he’s gay, and he’ll only let me suck him off if there’s a girl involved,” said Danni to Xena. “What say you be that girl tonight?”

  Jessica coughed daintily, and Xena rolled her eyes. “Not in a million. But…can I pay you to be my fake boyfriend for a week or two?”

  Xavier: It’s not the main piece of the puzzle, but I appreciate it. Miss you. Madly.

  Danni said, “Fake boyfriend?”

  “I like a guy. I wanna make him jealous,” Xena explained. “So I want you to pretend to be my long-kept-secret boyfriend. That’s gonna require you leering at/touching my boobs, putting your lips to mine, your tongue in my mouth, and staring at my ass when I walk away. Can you do that, or does the mere sound of it gross you out?”

  My phone buzzed again.

  Danni watched Xena with wary suspicion. “Will you be expecting me to do a full 180 and fall in love with you by the end of these two weeks? You know, is this a ploy to get me to ‘suddenly realize’ I like girls?”

  Xena scoffed. “You stick your dick in the stink-hole for pleasure. You seriously think I want someone else’s shit on my tongue?”

  Taking no umbrage to this, Danni glanced from me to Jessica and said, “I assume I’ll get to meet a bunch of famous people with this gig so, yeah, I’m in.”

  I checked my phone. The text wasn’t from Xavier this time, but from an unregistered number.

  “You’re gonna have to work on sounding more like a man, though. Or everyone’s gonna know we’re a farce.”

  Danni cleared his throat and spoke in a deep, pompous voice, “Hi, I’m Danni Newton, and I suck cunts.”

  Making a face, Xena waved a hand. “Oh, blech. Dial it down. You sound like a perverted politician.” She plucked a one hundred dollar bill from her purse and tossed it to him. “Buy yourself a pack of cigarettes. Start smoking.”

  Unknown Number: Room 409 @ Hart’s Hotel. Please…DON’T show up. Please. ∞

  I didn’t need a name. The infinity sign at the end was everything.

  The door was matte-black. A gold embossed 409 situated at eye-level. A “Do Not Disturb” door-hanger swayed ever so slightly from the handle.

  I could hear a familiar rhythm, stifled by carpets, curtains, bed sheets, wood and concrete, coming from the other side of the door. Massive Attack’s Angel.

  The same base, drumbeat, guitar strum, and soft voice I lost my virginity to.

  I pressed my forehead below the 409, pressed my palms flat against the matte-black wood, letting the muffled music seep through the wood and into my pores as the memories of that night floated around my head in lazy swirls, like spice-scented smoke from an illegal Cuban cigar.

  My heart ached. Then it smiled. Then it ached some more.

  The song ended then started all over again like it was set on repeat. I straightened up, curled my fingers into a hook, and made two gentle taps on the door. Possibly too gentle to be heard over the magical creation of Angel.

  The music volume dimmed, and a few seconds later the door soundlessly opened.

  Eyes of blue skies and cirrus clouds stared at me with evident conflict, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether he was glad I came, or wish I’d obeyed the capitalized ‘DON’T’ in his message.

  With a five o’ clock shadow on chiseled jaw, his sturdy physique was clad in a dark-gray sweater and denims, white socks, no shoes.

  Releasing the door handle, he took small steps backward into the room.

  I walked in, closed the door and leaned back against it.

  Black Doc Martens were kicked off haphazardly by the bedside, a chocolate-brown duffel bag vomiting clothes out onto the bed.

  His fiancée was under the impression that he was still in New York spending quality time with his sister.

  Instead he was here, in a hotel room, staring at me, keeping his distance like I was an apparition, fists clenched tight.

  I let my handbag fall to the floor, my hands left dangl
ing at my sides like a puppet, letting the blood flow freely so I could think clearly.

  “I begged you not to come,” were his first words.

  “I’m not Jesus,” I replied, voice quiet, “I don’t answer prayers.”

  Pushing away from the door, I took a step towards him, but he stepped back. “What are we doing, Ally?”

  “Picking up where we left off.” I continued toward him, and this time he met me halfway, his hands cupping my neck, and then my face.

  His slippery hot tongue licked across my lips, coaxing its way between them like a smooth, experienced jock between a virgin’s thighs. The doors opened, and then he was back home, unpacking his luggage, pulling the blinds and letting sweet sunlight stream in. He was home.

  When I sighed into his mouth, my whole body sagged, expelling two years’ worth of exhaustion. His tongue licked the roof of my mouth, missing no spots, announcing his arrival.

  Eyes closed, I reached up and covered his hands on my face, letting his warmth suffuse me, letting his touch break me down from a numb, bitter bitch to a winged fairy who believed in love and magic and miracles.

  When his lips left mine, I almost cried. “We shouldn’t, Ally. There’s no clean, happy ending to this.”

  Knocking his hands from my face, I shoved him away from me. “Hearts can be saved, pain can be spared, if you leave her and come back to me, Davi. I came here for you. I don’t give a shit about this modeling crap. Leave her.”

  His chin touched his chest as he backed up from me again. “It’ll ruin her. She’s love. Pure love. I’d never be able to live with myself if I hurt a heart like hers.”

  What utter and complete bullshit!

  “You ruined me when you left me for her!” I shouted. “What, was my heart not pure enough for you? You launched a cannon ball through my soul because I wasn’t rescuing baby frigging kittens off the goddamn street?”

  And if she’s so damn pure, why was she banging a rock star and not a pastor’s son?

  “I never—” he broke off and began pacing.

  “Why did you want me here, Davi?” I demanded. “Why lie to your Mother Theresa fiancée and check into this hotel? Why are you conflicted? Why did you kiss me? Twice? Why did you—”

  “Because I’m still in love with you! Because seeing or hearing about you with him makes me feel like I’m outta breath. Because ever since I saw you on that balcony I haven’t been able to screw her without seeing your face. Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you and where we would’ve been if your stubborn ass had just come on the damn tour with me!”

  His eyes were wild, and he looked red and swollen, like he would burst with an earsplitting explosion if pricked with the tip of a pin. “I’ve been in love with you before you even decided to give me a chance, Ally. And that love hasn’t gone anywhere. Hasn’t even shifted a little to the side to make room for her. I was a pussy and made a pussy decision and now it’s tormenting me.”

  He stopped pacing and perched his ass on the nightstand, hands on his knees, head lowered. “And even though every bone in my body is screaming for me to leave Jess and take what I need, what I know will complete me, I can’t and I won’t…because I’m still a big pussy hiding behind a rock star mask.”

  Heaving a great sigh, I rubbed my temples. “Should I go, or should I stay?”

  Davian didn’t raise his head, but his thickly-lashed eyes did.

  “Xavi keeps asking me for the main piece,” I told him. “He thinks I have it. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know it’s you who has it.”

  Pain-filled eyes stared back at me, lips sealed, jaw tight.

  “Make your play right now, asshole, or give me back the main piece! I need something to give him.”

  When he simply sat there like the giant vagina he proclaimed to be, I turned and flounced back to the door. “I hope this decision haunts you, Davian Hamilton.” I picked up my handbag. “I wish you a miserable life with your soon-to-be wife.”

  My hand had almost touched the door handle when I was swept clean off the ground and transported in the curve of strong arms over to a deep-red chaise situated by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows which displayed a twinkling vista of the city.

  I was lowered onto my back, handbag falling from my hand, one foot bent up on the chaise, the other dangling off to the ground.

  Davian knelt between my long legs. “The decision has been haunting me since I made it nineteen months ago, Alina O’Hara. Every single day.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  His hands pushed my skirt up to my waist. “No way to tell you without paying the price.”

  “What?” I tried to push up on my elbows but he pushed me back down, using his other hand to pinch my throbbing bud through my shear underwear.

  My hips thrust up for more.

  “I want you to stay more than I want you to go,” he told my now wet panties. “But for my sake, and others depending on me, I want you to go. You’re a sacrifice, Alina.”

  What on earth is he talking about?

  Palm pressed to my shoulder, he pushed me back down when I tried to sit up again. “But before you go’’—with one finger, he shifted the sheer material of my underwear to the side. “I need…I need to taste home one last time”—one finger slid inside, evoking a deep sigh from me—“one last time.”

  Then his tongue was on my clit, his finger gliding in and out.

  “Davi…oh God…”

  I surrendered. I sagged. Melting into the chaise as I let the only man I’d ever loved lick me to the moon. I missed his mouth, the signature swirls and tricks of his tongue that always made me reach for his hair, toss my head back and break out into violent trembles. The way he would nip the tip of my bud whenever he was ready for me to come—because he had command over my orgasms like that.

  I’d missed it all. I’d dreamed of it for a thousand nights.

  And as a single tear threatened to leak down the side of my face, my back arched and I spasmed with my orgasm like a sinner in an electric chair.

  Davian licked me languidly throughout the screams and shudders that came with my orgasm, petting me, bringing me back down.

  When my limbs went limp, he gave my clit one last soothing swipe, then knelt up on the chaise, and hauled his sweater off over his head.

  I touched his chest with open palms, just as I used to do each time he took his shirt off in front of me.

  His smile was a beacon flashing through a terrible storm when he said, “I’ve missed that.”

  I dragged them down to his middle, over his washboard abs and settled on his belt buckle. I undid it, undid his jeans, and took him out.

  Forming a fist around his thick length, I worked him up and down, watching his eyes close and his lips part for a hiss to escape.

  He wasn’t Xavier’s size, but it was the dick that broke my hymen, the dick that gave me climax after climax, the dick I fell in love with.

  While working him with one hand, I used the other to pat his pockets for condoms, found one and bagged him.

  Raising my hips, I positioned him at my entrance. “You may come in.”

  Davian opened his eyes, lowered down on top of me, and entered, muttering a curse when he bucked as far as he could. “Missed you so damn much, Ally.” Dropping his forehead to mine, his face contorted in pain. “I—you feel…the same. So…so right.”

  My lips met his, kissing his pain away. “Welcome home, baby.”

  Suddenly he was possessed. He was a man starved. A man repressed. A quiet man ready to speak out. He kissed me with rage and war, ripping my blouse open so the buttons popped and flew about the room, while he rocked erratically, without rhythm, in and out of me.

  Lips leaving mine out in the cold, he dipped his head and gave my breasts his warmest, sincerest greetings—or maybe not so warm and sincere.

  Wrapping my legs around him, I urged him deeper, gripped the sides of his face and kissed him hard
er. The chaise shifted a little with each penetrating slam.

  We always came together, and I was already teetering on the peak, waiting for him to reach the top, lace his fingers with mine, and swan dive with me into the burning lava below.

  I began rocking with him, encouraging a rhythm, and it wasn’t long before he breathed, “Ready.”

  We laced our fingers together, and we dove.

  Plummeted and burned to crisps. Together.

  After about five minutes of nothing but our ragged breathing and the soft cooing of cool air outside the windows, Davian asked my neck, “Why does he call you ‘Chino’?”

  What a rather weird and random question after earth-shattering sex.

  “You seriously can’t guess that one?”

  He rolled onto his side, squishing himself between the partial back of the chaise and my body. It was too narrow for both of us, but he was making himself comfortable and I didn’t feel like moving, so in Jillian Michael’s words, I decided to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

  “Is it from Frappuccino?” he asked, brows furrowed. “Because of your addiction?”

  “Bingo.”

  “That’s stupid,” he muttered.

  I laughed. “You’re just mad because you never thought of it first.”

  “Does he always have a Frappuccino for you each time he sees you?”

  Another weird question. “Same way you always had one for me.”

  “Goddammit,” he grumbled, pinching my nipple. “Now I really hate the bastard.”

  His inexplicable vexation at this was amusing. “Why?”

  From where his head was rested on my shoulder, he peered up at me. “The first sip, Ally. The first damn sip.”

  “What?”

  Absently rolling my nipple between two fingers, he expounded, “Watching you take the first sip of a Frappuccino is like watching a fragile angel gracefully sweep her fingers across the strings of a golden harp.”—Goddamn dramatic rock stars.—“I used to get you Frappas for the sole purpose of watching you take the first sip.”