by Marie Hall
Clicking on the TV, I settled back, inhaling a chocolaty whiff of buttery cookies. Jamie slipped into the seat next to me and wiggled her brows, a knowing look on her face.
“Mmhhmm, Jamie is wise, admit it.”
“Whatever.”
Blowing a raspberry, Jamie started the movie. “Yup, you know I’m right. Do you think I could do with Angel what I am if I didn’t take my own advice? Give yourself permission to see where it goes, and someday down the line if it goes away, then at least you’ll never wonder what if. You’ll know.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, all I said was, “Hmmm.” But inside a curling of anticipation and heat slithered and slinked through my belly. Was I seriously considering this? But there was no denying the suddenly slick palms or the tightening of the fine hairs at the back of my neck when I thought about enjoying more of his kisses, touching him the way I wanted to. Needed to.
Enjoying him right now.
Oh jeez, I was, I was seriously considering this. Ninety-nine point nine nine percent of me said “yes, great idea,” but there was that point zero one percent that was shaking and trembling because she thought that Alex wasn’t the kind I could dabble with. That playing with him was a lot like jumping rope in a field full of land mines. One wrong step and I’d be obliterated.
But that part was so small, I tuned her out. I was a glutton for punishment, always had been, and my desire for him had always been way too strong.
Chapter 5
Alex
She wasn’t coming. I was standing like a jackass in the parking lot I’d left her in last night, wearing cream slacks, loafers, and a tweed jacket. The second Ryan had caught me walking out of the bedroom in the outfit, he’d doubled over with laughter, knuckling tears out of his eyes and telling me in no uncertain terms that whoever this girl was, I was already so pussy-whipped it wasn’t even funny.
I was a jeans-and-cowboy-boots kind of guy, not this yuppie asshole, and yet I’d wanted to impress her. How stupid was I?
Liliana had punched Ryan in the arm for taunting me, but he’d been right. I didn’t do crap like this. Not for anybody. Last night I’d gone to bed so hard it’d been a miracle I hadn’t jacked off. But in my sick and twisted head I’d been struck with a sudden and very irrational surge of nobility. Thinking if I didn’t touch myself, relieve the ache, that somehow the universe would see and pave the way for me to get with her sooner.
I know… I’m an idiot.
Checking my wristwatch for the twentieth time, I turned back to my truck with a low growl and decided I was leaving. She was fifteen minutes late, and yeah I know that’s not a lot of time to have to wait, especially with women. But I was suddenly feeling out of my element, unsure of myself and like the biggest candy-ass alive.
I had one hand on the handle, but then I stilled because I heard music coming from down the street—the faint strains of twangy guitar and strummy bass. A smile gripped me. I knew it was her. In seconds the Bel Air was turning into the lot and my heart did a freaking flip in my chest.
My fingers clenched at the strange reaction.
Pulling up beside me, she rolled the window down and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Zoe looked nothing like the girl I knew.
Her hair was hanging down around her shoulders, long and soft and wavy. She wasn’t wearing eyeliner or red lipstick. She was also dressed differently. She looked more like an elementary school teacher now instead of the badass rocker chick I’d come to obsess over.
“Get in the car.” She jerked her chin to the passenger door.
Jogging around, I opened it and got in. The car smelled like lemons, and that combined with her tangerine-orangey scent started my stomach growling. She made me hungry, for her, for food… it was all kinda the same thing.
She immediately pulled back out onto the road and clicked the radio off.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was wearing a pink sweater with pearl snaps and a cream top, a pearl necklace, and a gray skirt that stopped at her knees. Strange, but the nerdy-librarian look was really turning me on. I shifted in my seat.
“Nice clothes,” I drawled.
Mouth twitching, she rolled her eyes. “Obasaan means grandma in Japanese by the way.” She peered at me and I had to stifle the sudden urge to grab her and plant a kiss on her pink, totally kissable, lips. “Anyway, she thinks I’m headed straight to hell because of my wild rocker ways. So I tone things down around her. But really there’s one even more obsessed with me than her.”
Her laughter filled the car, sounding like music in my ears. What the hell was the matter with me? Why was this chick affecting me this way? It wasn’t like she was the hottest thing I’d ever seen or been around. But as I scrolled through the countless faces I’d been with over the years, I quickly realized that was a lie. Zoe was more. I blew out a frustrated breath.
At some point she’d do or say something absolutely obnoxious and I’d be able to kick her off the pedestal she currently inhabited. She had to, nobody was perfect, and when she did I’d shake her like I’d shaken so many others.
“So to please your parents?” I picked up where we’d left off.
“Uh uh.” She smiled.
“Mother?”
“Bingo.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder; the scent of her shampoo smacked my nose. Spicy and fruity. God, she smelled good. It was annoying.
Clearing my throat, I continued, “So in order to please your mother, you dress like a retired schoolmarm?”
“Pretty much.” She turned left, heading deeper into the heart of the city. Tapping her fingers on the wheel, she sighed. She was tense, shoulders and spine straight.
My brows dipped. “What’s the matter?”
The coppery tones of her skin gleamed with a faint sheen of sweat. Austin was muggy today and without any AC on in the car, even I was starting to feel the heat. But maybe hers was more than body temperature, because a muscle tensed in her cheek and then she was giving me a grim look. “Zoe’s not my real name. Well it is, but it wasn’t the name I was born with.”
Rubbing my hands down my pants, I shifted on my seat. Whatever she was about to tell me, I had a feeling it was all tied into the mystery of who she was. “I’ve been thinking about you. Trying to rack my brain for any memory of you.”
I let the thought dangle like bait and didn’t have to wait long before she took the hook.
“And?” Her foot tapped on the floorboard. She was a tall woman. I’d always had a thing for tall women. Loved how I didn’t have to bend over and break my back to kiss them, loved the silhouette of their body in clothes, but mostly I’ve always loved the length of their legs. Impossibly long and seeming to stretch for miles. Zoe had smooth, supple calves, and the tan pumps she was wearing only accentuated that. It took me a moment to realize she had no tattoos on her legs. In fact, dressed as she was, hair hanging down the way it did, she didn’t look to have any. I missed the tats, but this woman was hot any way she came.
My mouth watered as I imagined unwrapping the clothes from her body and kissing each and every flower that came into view. Just thinking about it made my sack tight, my knees weak. I hadn’t had this type of a reaction to a woman, ever.
Fact was I still couldn’t remember anything about her, and it drove me nuts. I wanted badly to inject her into my past, to look and see her there. But I didn’t want to look like a loser either.
“We met a long time ago, right?”
A sparkle lit her honey-colored eyes. “You could say that.”
Being coy, she wasn’t going to make it easy. Which meant I’d just have to be more persuasive. Thankfully, I was more than up to the task. Unclicking my seat belt, I scooted just a little closer to her. She bit the corner of her lip, and the pulse in her neck fluttered like a hummingbird’s wing.
Brushing my fingers through her thick, soft black hair, I deliberately skimmed my fingers along the nape of her neck. She didn’t even move. It was amazing to me that a woman as confident and self-assure
d as Zoe reacted like this to me. The girl I’d met in the tattoo parlor the other night, the one who’d toyed with me… she wasn’t here. I liked that. I didn’t use to like that, not with other girls. With others it was always a sign that our parting would get messy. But I wasn’t getting bored around Zoe. I wanted to know what made her tick, why she’d covered herself in tattoos and piercings. Who was she? That was a mystery I needed to solve.
“Zoe,” I whispered, leaning into her hair, taking the sweet scent of oranges deep into my lungs.
“Hmm?”
I brushed her hair back and spoke into her ear. My lips were so close her heat tingled on them, made my groin tight. “Did we meet in school?”
A tiny shiver stole across her flesh, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake. Her reactions made a sort of frenzy fall over me. I didn’t care that she was driving, that I wasn’t wearing a seat belt, because the only thing that mattered was making her want me too.
“Yes.” The word wasn’t so much spoken as breathed. “Alex…” She glanced at me. “My name is Misaki Stone.”
She turned back around and I wish I could say an epiphany happened, that the sky parted and heaven was revealed. That suddenly I knew her, remembered our elusive past. But it was as much of a blank as it’d been before.
“Look…” She tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing the small ear gauge—the only part of her that looked like the old her. “Let’s not pretend like you’ll suddenly remember me. Here’s the deal. I was a sophomore, you were a senior. I had the hots for you; you didn’t give me the time of day. Why would you? Sophomores are utterly forgettable, right?”
She laughed and I didn’t know what to say. She was right—I couldn’t think of one senior who’d ever looked at a sophomore, considering most of us were legal and they were still jailbait. But I do wish I could have known her.
“I won’t lie and say I didn’t hope that maybe at some point you might have actually noticed little, geeky me.” She shrugged, giving me a toothy grin. “But I understand.”
“I bet you were adorable.” I leaned back.
“No, I really wasn’t. I had a retainer and glasses and a pizza-face and I looked like a freak.” She smirked. “Laughable, considering I really look like a freak now.”
I chuckled and leaned back in my seat. “I think you look hot.”
She wet her lips.
“I love your real name, by the way. Misaki.” I tasted it, savoring the vowels like a fine wine. “Lyrical. Does it mean anything?”
Turning onto a side street, she started to slow down. We’d been driving through the heart of the city, surrounded by a sprawl of skyscrapers, but now we were in the older side of town. The tall buildings gave way to smaller, blockier buildings.
“You really should put your seat belt on. My dad’s a stickler for that sort of thing. He’s best friends with the district-court judge and hears about all sorts of bad things that happen while driving. He’d shit a brick if he saw you rolling up without it on.”
“Right.” I scoot over, grabbing the seat belt. “I’m the good boyfriend. And by the way, damn.”
She smirked. “Yeah, you better be good or he’ll have your ass locked up. And since we’re dating, we met at the Shack, had drunk sex the first night we met six months ago, and have been inseparable ever since.”
“Umm. Seriously? Shouldn’t you say we met at the library or something?”
Her look was droll and her lips quirked. She was looking at me like I’d asked the stupidest question in the world.
“Yeah, that wouldn’t fly with my family. They think because I dress the way I do, I’m a total slut, hell-bent on raising Cain. They’d never believe it.”
“And yet you dress like this.”
Laughing, she pulled into an extremely crowded parking lot. “Mom hasn’t gotten the hint that Obasaan sees completely through the façade.”
She parked, then glanced in the rearview and fluffed her bangs before she started to open the door. I grabbed her arm.
“Forgot.” Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pulled out the fuzzy dice I’d decided on a whim to stop by the store this morning to buy. “Hot pink. Right?”
They weren’t exactly the big, huge kind people usually slid onto their rearview mirrors, but it would do until I could find a better pair.
Covering her mouth with her hand, she took the dice and giggled, it made her eyes sparkle and made my heart stutter. Taking them from my hand, she wrinkled her nose adorably and hung the dice across her rearview.
“It’s perfect. So perfect. Thank you.”
My eyes couldn’t stop drinking her in. The way she touched the dice with the tip of her finger, her slender, inked-up body all covered up. I wanted this woman and couldn’t hide it anymore.
“Misaki.” Her name trembled off my tongue; it was the name I preferred. I liked Zoe, it sounded fun and crazy, but Misaki was mystery and a touch of danger. Her gaze jerked to mine, her eyes were wide and her mouth slightly parted.
With a low growl, I leaned in and took her lips. I hadn’t meant to do it, but I couldn’t stop once I’d started. She parted her lips with a tiny moan that only made me hotter. I wanted to rip the sweater off, tear off her shirt, hike up her skirt…
“Stop.” She panted, pulling back and breathing heavily, then placing her forehead against mine. “You have to stop. If you don’t, I’ll never leave this car.” Her grin was a punch to the gut—cut right through me.
It was a little bit of torture to let her pull away. But I did. Blowing out a breath, she stared at my crotch, hunger burning through her molten-honey eyes. My pants were tented and all I could do was shrug.
Grunting, I shifted, tugging my pants. “Give me a second, okay?”
Flicking the dice with her fingers, she pressed her lips tight and nodded. It was obvious she was fighting not to laugh. “You brought this on yourself, you know.”
I growled. “No, you did—looking like a sexy, nerdy librarian.”
“So you’re into that, huh?” she teased.
“You don’t stop and I’ll handcuff you to the seat and never let you leave.” Bouncing my foot on the floorboard, I thought about whatever I could to make this problem go away. They say it makes it easier to give a speech when you think the audience is naked, and I wasn’t exactly giving a speech, but it was the only thing I could think of. But it really didn’t apply to this situation, I was trying not to be horny, and naked was exactly what I wanted right now.
“You know, my uncle has this hideous hairy wart on his face. It’s all brown and the hairs coming out of it are black and bristly, feels like pig hair.”
I frowned. Hairy warts were totally killing the mood and turning my stomach in the process. “That’s disgusting.”
“But it worked, right?” She pointed to my lap.
“Yeah, it worked. But I still want you.”
“You ready?” she asked, pretending I hadn’t said what I said, that she hadn’t heard it. But I knew she had, because her nostrils had flared just slightly, and her hands had curled into her lap.
“So how did we meet again?” I asked with a huff. I couldn’t believe I was seriously doing this.
“The Shack. Hot, drunk sex. Six months ago.” She ticked it off on her fingers. “Oh and be prepared for my family to act completely obnoxious.” Exasperation was in her words, but so was fondness.
I couldn’t say I knew how that felt. I hated my family, being around them made me want to stick a fork in my brain. But that was too much, too deep, to tell her. Wasn’t any of her business how screwed up my family really was.
“I like the hot, drunk sex part.” I smiled, shaking off the dark thoughts like I’d shaken them off so many times before.
“I just bet you do, cowboy. Now, let’s go before my dad sends out an APB.”
~*~
Zoe
As soon as I walked into the Jade Palace, I was immediately accosted (and no, I don’t use that word lightly) by my Uncle Hank. He’s a big
bruiser redneck type who could, more often than not, be found by the lake on a Saturday afternoon with beer in hand and occasionally scratching his butt while he waited for the fish to take his bait. I was surprised he’d shown up—these sorts of gatherings usually weren’t his thing at all.
But today he was dressed in cream slacks and a red, collared shirt. His gray-blond hair was combed back, and the hairy mole was waving hi.
“Uncle Hank,” I said, my voice muffled since he’d clamped me so tight to his side he’d smushed my face.
Somehow, and it was very strange, Obasaan had taken a liking to my father’s gruff redneck brother. Hank was the only member of the family able to make my tiny, four-foot-nothing gran crack a smile. So my mother tolerated his more brutish ways and often invited him even though he usually said no.
Dim sum was a weekly tradition in my family, much like the proverbial fried-chicken dinner might be for Americans. It was a time for my mother to rub elbows with the important Japanese. The ones who reeked of old money and had lots of connections. I think Mom really loved my dad—I mean, with her high standards she must have. But I wasn’t fool enough to believe that she hadn’t seen his drive and determination in college, that she hadn’t realized his brilliance and that he would climb the corporate ladder someday. Not to mention the old money the Stone family came from. That was the life she’d always wanted, and my father was only too happy to provide.
So we came here, every week, ready to rub elbows and pretend to be the perfect, fairy-tale family.
A giant peal of laughter engulfed me and jostled my Uncle’s rotund beer gut. “Look at you, all ladylike and such.” Uncle Hank’s rheumy blue eyes smiled down at me fondly. “Last I saw ya, you was covered in ink and metal.”
“Yeah, well.” I extricated myself from his ham-like paws. “You’re the only member of the family who’s ever visited me at the shop. So let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we?”