by Meg Ripley
“Not for lack of trying,” I countered. “And if Jules hadn’t talked sense into me, and if you hadn’t refused to give up, we’d be broken up.”
“Wow.” Allie sat back in her chair. “I...I’ve never actually gotten money for something I didn’t work on.”
“Your pictures are in the liner notes,” I told her. “Except for the ones of Alex.” I smirked.
“You’re kidding me,” Allie said.
“It was Nick’s idea,” I said, shrugging. The waiter came to the table.
“Dessert?” I shook my head, keeping Allie from saying anything.
“I’ve got something for us at home,” I looked at Allie and grinned.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We barely made it through the door to my apartment; I couldn’t keep my hands off of Allie. I somehow managed to get the key in the lock and get the door open, and then we were in my living room, kissing each other, hands all over the place. It had been more than a week since I’d even really been alone with her, much less since we’d even thought about having sex. I closed the door behind us and pulled Allie by the hand towards my bedroom; my cock was already hard, already throbbing.
“I thought…” I stopped Allie’s comment with a kiss, plunging my tongue into her mouth, letting my hands wander over the curves of her body. “I thought you said something about dessert,” she said when she was able to break away from my lips. I laughed.
“We have to burn off some of that dinner first, right?” I dipped down to her neck and kissed and nibbled, cupping her tits in my hands, giving them a quick squeeze. We stumbled into my room and I tugged at her dress, trying to find where it zipped, where it tied, how to get it off of her as quickly as possible. “I love how this looks on you, but it is a fucking pain to take off,” I murmured against the spot just below Allie’s ear.
“It’s not that hard,” Allie said, giggling. She guided my hands to a spot along her side and I found the zipper there, pulled it down. I felt her moving, and then all at once the dress was slipping down over her body, sliding along her curves, catching at her hips for just a second before falling to her feet in a puddle. I took in the sight of her: her tits barely held in the strapless bra, the matching lace panties that I could see were already wet through from how turned on she was, the shape of her in the light of my bedroom. “How did I go this fucking long without this?” I reached up and cupped her boobs in my hands, giving them another squeeze before I reached around to the back to unhook the bra.
Allie went to work too, unbuttoning my shirt, tugging it down over my shoulders, pulling the hem of it free of my pants. I pulled her panties down from her hips and let them fall to her knees, and just like she’d practiced it her entire life, she stepped right out of them to stand in front of me, completely naked. Her hands went to the fly of my pants, and I resisted the urge to help her get me undressed, knowing it would just make it take longer when we got all tangled up in each other.
I focused on her mouth, on her tits, teasing her, kissing and licking and sucking, tasting the sweat and soap on her skin, breathing in the smell of her perfume. Allie managed to get my pants down to my knees, and I kicked them off the rest of the way, almost tripping over them as I started to pull her towards the bed. I kissed her hungrily, letting my hand slip up between her legs, until I felt the slick wet folds of her pussy against my fingers. I rubbed and stroked her, working down deeper between the labia, and I knew the instant I found her clit by the way she gasped and shivered against me.
We fell into bed together, and for a while it was like we were both too shy to actually go through with what we wanted; we just kept kissing each other, me working Allie with my fingers, her rubbing my cock, stroking me up and down, her thumb swirling around the tip of my erection. I could feel myself getting harder and harder by the minute, more and more turned on as Allie worked me, speeding up and slowing down just as I did, teasing me just like I was doing to her.
All at once I couldn’t stand it anymore; I knew if I let her keep going, I was going to come in her hand--and that wasn’t what I wanted. I pinned Allie down onto the bed, slithering on top of her, and claimed her mouth with mine as I shifted down between her legs. She was soaking wet, and I wanted to feel her tight heat wrapped around my cock so bad I could just about taste it. I took a deep breath when I broke away from her lips, trying to get enough self-control to keep from hitting climax right away, and guided the tip of my cock up against her pussy, rubbing along her hot, wet folds for a few heartbeats before I started to slide in.
Her muscles flexed around me and I heard her breathy little cry just under the sound of my own moaning. Allie wrapped her legs around my waist and I pushed deeper and deeper inside of her, filling her up inch by inch, until my hips were right up against hers. “I’ve missed this,” I told her in a little whisper, almost shuddering at the strain of holding back.
“God, me too,” Allie said, her arms wrapping around my shoulders, her fingertips pressing against my skin. I took a quick breath and started moving, rocking my hips against hers, pulling out just an inch--maybe two--and sliding back in. Like magic, Allie fell right in with my beat, twisting her hips against mine, pushing down to meet my thrusts. I knew--absolutely knew--that I wasn’t going to last very long, the way she felt and how long it had been since we’d last fucked. But I was going to make every minute I could last count.
I started out so slowly it almost made my balls ache, holding myself back, feeling Allie’s inner walls tightening around me even as she somehow managed to get wetter and wetter. But in what seemed like only a few minutes, I found myself speeding up, thrusting harder and faster inside of her, kissing her everywhere my lips could reach. The sound of Allie’s moans and gasps and cries of pleasure was enough to drive me crazy--enough to make me almost want to abandon any idea of holding back at all. I tried to slow down a few times, but I couldn’t keep it up; I had to keep going.
All at once the tension building up down deep between my hips just snapped, and I groaned out as wave after wave of pleasure crackled through my body like live electricity. I heard Allie crying out again and again, felt her muscles flexing around me in erratic little spasms, and tried to keep myself going for her sake, to give her the longest climax possible. Before too long, though, I could feel myself finishing, the last little jolts of orgasm shocking my nerves, leaving me completely spent--at least for about five minutes. I collapsed down onto the bed next to Allie, letting my arms and legs tangle with hers, panting and gasping for breath just like she was.
“Was that good enough?” I pushed my sweaty hair out of my face and opened my eyes to look at the woman I had nearly lost.
“It’s a good start,” Allie said, with the little grin I liked so much. “But you’d better have dessert for me as well as a repeat performance.”
“Oh--fuck, I almost forgot,” I said, shaking my head and laughing. “I have dessert. Give me a minute to catch my breath.” I kissed her on the cheek sloppily, and then on the forehead, and then on the lips, and sank back down onto the bed, waiting for my heart to slow down, for my breathing to even out.
When I was recovered enough to be able to use my legs, I crawled out of the bed and gave Allie another quick grin on my way to the bedroom door. I padded across the living room and into the kitchen, and opened the fridge to look for the treat I’d gotten earlier that day. The Hoffman’s Chocolates box jumped out at me from everything else on the same shelf, and I picked it up, taking just a second to glance inside and make sure that my surprise for Allie was perfectly intact still.
I carried the box with me back into the bedroom and found Allie half-sitting up at the head of the bed, bright-eyed and smiling. She saw the box in my hands and the smile deepened. “Oooh, what did you get us?”
“Chocolate covered strawberries, and a few of the dipped Oreos,” I told her. I sat down on the bed and opened the box up, extending it towards Allie. She immediately plucked one of the strawberries, and I watched her face as she closed her ey
es and bit into it; the sound of the moan that left her throat was as good as it was during sex--and it started me right back up. Plenty of time in the night still, I reminded my cock, setting the box down between Allie and me and picking out a chocolate-dipped Oreo for myself.
“This is definitely at least as good as anything we could have gotten at Houston’s,” Allie said around a mouthful of chocolate and strawberry. She leaned in close and kissed me on the lips, and I could taste the sweet-tart strawberry, the bittersweet chocolate, the taste of her.
“Damn straight,” I said. “Besides, at Houston’s we couldn’t combine dessert and sex.”
“You are not putting an Oreo in my pussy, just so we’re clear,” Allie said. I snorted and almost had Oreo crumbs in my nose.
“Not what I was thinking, but I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her. I kissed her again. “Have another strawberry and then let’s get back down to it--we have lost time to make up for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I stubbed out my cigarette in the almost full ashtray and looked around the green room back behind the festival main stage. Nick and Olivia had wandered off, and Mary still wasn’t letting Alex stray too far from her side, but things felt mostly pretty good. We were going to be playing the headline spot for the second night--not the biggest honor, which would go to The Strokes the next night, but it was a pretty good billing for Molly Riot, especially considering we’d nearly self-destructed less than a year before.
I spotted Allie, chatting with one of the members of Hop Along with her camera around her neck on its strap, just hanging there for the moment. It was early days yet for our promotion stint for the new album, but when Mary had insisted that she should come on the road with us for Alex’s sake--to keep him on the straight and narrow--I’d pulled rank and gotten Allie included. The only Molly Riot girlfriends who hadn’t come along were Fran and Sophie; Fran because she had her own band to worry about and Sophie because she couldn’t--and didn’t want to--justify taking time off of work.
There had been grumbles about that, but in the end, we’d all sort of concluded that girlfriends on the tour bus weren’t as bad as we used to think, especially considering the fact that Nick and Olivia and Fran and Jules had originally hooked up on previous tours. It meant more money out of pocket, but the album was already selling well enough to make that less of a concern, especially since we weren’t doing anything particularly expensive with the lighting effects onstage.
Allie had sort of become the unofficial band chronicler, working with Olivia; they got along so well on their first project that Nick and I had joked that they were going to leave us for each other eventually. Olivia had gotten Allie some more work in journalism, and of course Allie was getting one quarter of Alex’s shares of the album sales.
“Yo!” I looked around, shaken out of my thoughts by the sound of Jules’ voice. “We’re supposed to talk about the set list soon--don’t forget.” I nodded. One of the things that had come out of the near-breakup of Molly Riot was that every member of the band had a particular thing that they were in charge of. We’d decided not to leave so much up to Ron or the label anymore--that had been a big thing that had sneaked up on us, that had made us all dissatisfied. So, Jules was in charge of managing shit at tour dates, Nick handled press, Dan worked on the website, I did merchandise, and Alex was the chosen representative to deal with the label--it was what he did best, anyway.
Allie caught sight of me and finished up her conversation, smiling at whoever it was and waving as she turned and walked towards me. She lifted her camera up as she came closer, and before I could even think about posing in any way, she’d snapped a quick, candid picture of me. “It really isn’t fair how naturally photogenic you are,” she told me, coming to sit down next to me on the raised part of the concrete floor; it had probably been a ramp at one point, I’d decided, but it didn’t seem to lead anywhere anymore.
“I think it’s all your talent in picking the exact right moment,” I told her, shaking my head. “I’ve taken plenty of awkward-ass pictures of myself.”
“I’ve already managed to get enough shots of different people hanging around backstage to make a few thousand,” Allie told me, stretching just enough to lift the hem of her tee shirt up. “The rest of today I can just hang out and drink and have a good time.”
“Funny how your day ends before mine even begins,” I said, reaching over to tweak one of Allie’s braids.
“Well, I mean, if it makes you feel better I can keep working the rest of the day into tonight, make some more money,” Allie pointed out tartly.
“Come with me to our green room, at least,” I suggested. “Get a few snaps of us debating tonight’s set list.” Things were not entirely tension free between Allie and Alex, but with Mary playing chaperone, they’d started to relax a bit.
All in all, it looked like we’d finally come out of the rough patch we’d put ourselves into. I lit another cigarette and hopped down from the former ramp, and gave Allie a quick kiss. I couldn’t have imagined, at the beginning of recording the album, that everything would fall into place as perfectly as it had: I had a woman I loved, I had an open invitation to work with Bent Bridges whenever I had the free time, and Molly Riot were better, bigger, and stronger than ever. I held Allie’s hand all the way to the green room, and thought to myself that--sappy as it sounded--I was probably one of the happiest fucking guys at the entire festival.
THE END
Desire On The Run
Story Description
My mother always told me not to talk to strangers...but this time, how could I possibly resist?
“Chelsea Davies, good morning. You are in a great deal of danger. I strongly advise you to call into work sick today. In fact, it would be best if you remained exactly where you are in your apartment for the next thirty minutes.”
Pfft...and you thought your Monday was bad? Imagine waking up to a call like this?
“Someone wants to kill you. They think you know something that they’d rather keep hidden.”
And why should I believe a word you're saying?
"It doesn’t matter at the end of the day whether you know it or not—the person after you thinks that you do, because you have the information.”
Within no time, there's a man at my door here to whisk me away to safety...and he's drop dead gorgeous.
Do I trust him, grab my stuff and run?
Or is he as much of a threat as the people that he claims are after me?
PART ONE
Chelsea had finally managed to sink into the depths of the sleep she craved after spending an entire night tossing and turning, her mind going over the petty details and stresses of her week at work. Finally, as the sky had already begun to lighten, her mind had succumbed to the bone-deep exhaustion of her body, and given up the task of enumerating all the things she needed to do. She was in the midst of a dream—a sweet, uncomplicated, comforting dream—when the siren-slide sound of Hot Hot Heat’s “Future Breeds” reached into her brain, splitting the air and cutting through the threads of her dream state. Chelsea groaned, the sound almost a sob of frustration, as she reached out and blindly grabbed for her phone where she kept it; not on her bedside table, which she knew from experience would make it easier to turn the alarm off altogether, but on the desk next to her bed. Fumbling, she closed her fingers around the slippery device and by memory thumbed the snooze feature.
Chelsea knew that the nine minutes’ silence would not actually help; it felt as if every joint in her body had been attacked by bat-wielding assailants, as if her eyelids had been replaced with sandpaper. The dull throb at her temples told her readily that nine minutes was simply not a replacement for the hours of sleep she had missed. But for a precious few moments, at least, she could pretend she didn’t have to get up and out of bed, that she didn’t have to go to work. Chelsea let the phone fall onto the blankets, curling in on herself tighter and burying her face against the pillows in denial of the idea that it was alrea
dy morning.
She began to slip into a doze, her muscles relaxing one by one as the silence stretched out. Maybe—just maybe—she’d get a few minutes of quality sleep. Chelsea’s breathing evened and slowed, and she was on the edge of falling asleep once more when she found herself once more pulled sharply into wakefulness by the sensation of her phone vibrating. Her sleep-fogged brain at first protested that it couldn’t possibly be nine minutes yet; but then, if it had been, she would be hearing her alarm tone—not feeling the buzzing vibration of her phone’s silent “ring.” Someone was calling her.
“It’s like no one in the entire world wants me to sleep today,” Chelsea muttered to herself, opening her eyes and scrubbing at her face in self-pity. Her phone continued to vibrate, and she ruefully gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep. The only people her exhausted mind could think of who would call her at such an early hour were her coworkers; her friends knew better, and the few members of her family still alive and speaking to her did as well. Chelsea yawned as her hand found the phone where it was buried in the blanket. She picked it up and squinted against the light in the room as she tried to force her dry, sleepy eyes to focus on the number flashing on the screen. It wasn’t a number she recognized. For a moment—a flicker of a thought—she considered throwing the phone across the room, curling up once more, and considering the day a complete failure to launch. But Chelsea realized that she was already fully awake; and if it was a telemarketer, she at least could get the lesser comfort of verbally tearing whoever it was into pieces.
“Who the hell is this?” she asked as soon as she had tapped the “accept” icon on her screen and saw that the call had connected.