Down & Dirty

by Ashley Johnson

  Harlow wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me in for a one armed hug, almost smothering me with the pink feathered boa she’s wearing, before turning me in the direction of the other girls.

  “Emmie you know most of the girls here, right?” Harlow asks.

  “Yeah,” I smile at Kara, Gentry, Maya, and Katie, whom I already know. There is one girl I don’t know smiling in my direction, so I stick my hand out toward her and introduce myself.

  “Hey, I’m Emmie Black.”

  “Hi, I’m Willow, Harlow’s older sister. I don’t ride,” she states. I smile at her and we all wordlessly turn toward the bar to grab a drink.

  After four drinks and an hour sweating my ass off on the dance floor, I wave to my group of friends, who are bouncing up and down gracelessly as they dance, to grab their attention and point to the bar, indicating that I need another drink. This time I may need water, if only to quench my thirst before my next whiskey sour.

  I try to take a seat as gracefully as possible which, with all of the alcohol swimming in my system, probably is as graceful as a seal attempting to move on land, and start to scan the room for someone to take home with me tonight.

  My glazed over eyes finally land on what I hope is a hot guy who looks a few years older than me standing at a high top table with his friends. He looks to be around six feet and has blonde hair, but my vision is a bit blurry, so I close one eye to try and get a better look.

  He finally turns his face toward mine and squints in my direction before making a weird face and turning back to his friends.

  I wonder why he was looking at me like he’s just sucked on a lemon, but then I belatedly realize that I’m staring at him with one eye squeezed shut and my butt barely planted on the bar stool. I may also be swaying a bit. Either that or we’ve left the bar and are now on a boat.

  Maybe I need to slow down on the drinks before I try to pick someone up tonight, I think to myself, but then when the bartender comes toward me I order another whiskey sour. Fuck it. I’m here for some fun.

  Before he comes back with my drink I feel my phone vibrate in the pocket of my black lace shorts. I pull it out and close one eye in order to see the numbers clearly.

  The screen tells me it’s an unknown number and I think about not answering it for a moment, but I’m on the verge of super drunk and suddenly feel very chatty. I just hope whoever is on the other end feels up for an extended conversation.

  “Lo?” I slur out after I answer.

  “Hello?” I hear in a deep voice on the other end.

  “Lo? Whose is this?” I ask, my words running together a bit too quickly for my liking.

  “I’m a bit offended that you don’t automatically know the sound of my voice, sugar,” the person purrs.

  I slowly shake my head, trying to clear it when my entire body freezes as the name ‘sugar’ registers. I realize who is on the other end of the line.

  “Nixon? How in the hell did you get my number?” I mumble out, but I’m not sure that what I thought in my head actually came out coherently. I hope he can understand what I’m trying to say.

  “Well that wasn’t the warm greeting I was looking for from you, especially after the naked hello I got this morning,” he mumbles, but with all the noise in the bar I can barely hear him.

  “What did you say? You need to speak up if you want this conversation to go on any longer,” I bark.

  “Where are you sugar? There’s a lot of background noise.”

  Before I can remember that this cocky jerk not only signed my tit without permission, but also looked through my windows while I was naked and stole my dog, I blurt out where I am.

  “I’m sitting at Tom’s waiting for my fifth drink to arrive,” I tell him.

  “Awesome, my buddy and I are just around the corner. I’ll have him drop me off and be there in five,” Nixon answers.

  “Oh no, Nixon don’t-“ and before I can even get my sentence out, the call has ended.

  With perfect timing, my drink appears in front of me and I down it, signaling for another. The bartender shoots me an impatient look and shakes his head, but still makes the drink. Before the next one makes its way in front of me I feel the heat of someone standing behind me.

  “Hello Emmie,” a deep voice rumbles behind me.

  My eyes close on their own accord while the low pitch of his voice warms my body more than the alcohol has. I spin my chair around slowly, mostly because I know that any sudden movements will cause me to lose my balance since I’m tipping toward drunk as a skunk.

  When I’m fully turned in his direction, I try my hardest not to react to Nixon, which is almost impossible.

  His brown hair is sticking in every which direction, looking haphazardly gorgeous. His brown eyes are setting my body on fire as they scan me from top to bottom. My eyes stop on his scruffy beard and I notice just how sexy it is on his square jaw. I try to picture what that scruff would feel like on my upper thighs.

  Then I notice that his left cheek has a small pale scar that disappears in the scruff and I wonder how far the scar goes and how he got it. My mind shifts from his scar and is now focused on something completely different. I narrow my eyes when I see a hand running along Nixon’s jaw line.

  What bitch has the nerve to come over and hit on him right in front of me?

  But as I sloppily look around him for another woman, I notice it’s just the two of us. I glare at the hand on his face once more and then follow the path of the forearm.

  Shit, it’s my hand on his jaw. What the hell is wrong with me? Oh yeah, I’m drunk off my ass, that’s what’s wrong with me.

  I rip my hand away from his cheek like it was on fire and hope there is a scowl on my face when he chuckles at me.

  “It’s okay, sugar. I have that effect on women,” he smirks.

  Cocky asshole.

  I roll my eyes at him and immediately regret it. Trying to roll your eyes when the room is already spinning is a very bad idea. I grip onto the arms of my chair and squint at him. “What are you doing here, Nixon?”

  “I tried to explain it to you this morning, but for some reason you were all pissy.” Some reason? He was peeking through my windows like some freak and I was all pissy?

  “I want to spend the night with you Emmie, but I can’t take advantage of you while you’re plowed and I’m sober, so I’m just going to have to catch up. Maybe drunk sex with you will be hot.” He flags down the bartender, who looks leery of coming in my direction.

  “Two double shots of Jack, neat please,” Nixon says. The bartender nods and goes to step away, but at the last minute turns back to us and hikes his thumb in my direction.

  “They aren’t for her, are they?” the bartender asks him.

  “No, they’re for me. I think she should have water for just a bit,” one side of his mouth pulls up in a smile. I narrow my eyes in his direction and stick my tongue out.

  Nixon’s eyes dart down to my tongue and then he starts to move his face closer to mine. I feel his arm slowly wrap around my waist and he pulls me in closer to him before it finally clicks that he’s going to kiss me. I pull my tongue back into my mouth and bite down on my lips and Nixon halts his movements.

  “Pity, I would have loved to find out how your tongue tastes in my mouth.”

  My brain is like baby mush. I’m sure I have a blank look on my face, like I’m taking the SAT’s all over again. Nixon winks at me and turns his attention toward the bartender who is placing his drinks and a tall glass of water for me in front of us.

  With a head nod in the bartender’s direction, Nixon picks up his first drink and downs it, along with the second quickly. The rough movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed his drinks completely captivates me. Then he turns his face toward me and gives me a smile that I’m sure made my thong fall to the floor.

  “Take a few sips of your water and then let’s go dance,” he insists.

  For some reason, I’ve become an invalid. I can’t think, or t
alk, or even move for that matter. Nixon rolls his eyes and lifts the water glass up to my mouth. When the glass touches my lower lip, my mind clicks on and my hands shoot up to grab the glass.

  I must be too drunk, though, because my movements are choppy and awkward.

  My hand hits the bottom of the water glass, which Nixon apparently didn’t have a tight grip on, and it flies out of his hands and splashes all over the front of my white tank top making me gasp. At least the freezing cold water has sobered me out of my alcohol and Nixon induced drunken stupor.

  I finally glance up at him, noticing a look of slight irritation on his face. When his eyes leave mine and descend my body, his irritated scowl turns into a cocky smirk, leaving me confused.

  “Nice pink bra, sugar. Do you have on a matching set of panties?” he smiles and raises a brow at me.

  I look down and notice that the water has made the front of my tank top non-existent. I swear if my entire body wasn’t numb from the copious amounts of alcohol I’d ingested tonight I could feel the blush creeping across my face. I shoot him my meanest glare and shake the water from my bare arms, choosing not to acknowledge him.

  “No worries, I’ll find out soon enough,” he answers confidently and then quickly spins me and grabs my hips so my back is pressed to his broad chest. My eyes are clenched closed as I try to keep my drinks down so I don’t see him slowly walking us toward the dance floor.

  I feel his scruffy cheek press against the side of my temple and suddenly I’m not worried about my stomach anymore. No, the feeling has moved a bit further south and now I can focus on nothing but the delicious tingle in my nether regions.

  “Come on, Emmie. Let’s go do a little vertical dancing before we switch it to the horizontal mambo,” he murmurs into my ear.

  I roll my eyes at the cheesy pick up line that should only be used by prepubescent boys and he chuckles, probably catching it. Then I feel him lightly bite my lobe while he wraps his arms around my waist.

  That below the belt tingle intensifies.

  I must be a lot drunker than I thought I was. I have to be because I haven’t told him to fuck off or shoved him away. Just because his arms feel so good wrapped around my stomach doesn’t mean I should be letting him do it. My hormones are taking over my brain functionality and making it so that my body only does things that will quench these sexual desires.

  We make it onto the dance floor and I look up to see all of my friends smiling like they have a secret. Harlow is giving me thumbs up while jumping up and down like a kangaroo on crack.

  But before my brain can catch up and really process what’s happening, Nixon and I are rubbing against each other on the dance floor. I have my back pressed against his chest and one of his arms is curled around my shoulder. The other is wrapped protectively around my waist as he moves both of our bodies back and forth.

  His mouth is next to my ear and he’s whispering sexy, raunchy, dirty things he wants to do to me. I can feel myself grow wetter with every passing second.

  My body doesn’t even consult me before I feel my eyes close and lust has taken over my entire body. I try to remember the last time I got some good lovin’ from a man. It’s been, what, at least five months since I’ve gotten off with the help of someone else. My battery operated boyfriend needs a break. I need to hook up with someone tonight.

  “Don’t worry baby, we’ll both be getting what we want tonight,” Nixon growls into my ear.

  I feel my eyes open wide and then close in mortification and body sags against his. I must have said that out loud. Damn it! I really need to stop drinking now before something happens that I can’t take back.

  The last thing I remember, other than flagging down a cocktail waitress and ordering another whiskey sour, is grinding my ass against Nixon as we dance. I’m not sure how long it goes on, but I remember thinking I didn’t ever want the night to end.

  Chapter 7

  Son of a bitch, it’s bright in here.

  When I process the bright light piercing through my tightly shut eyes I throw my forearm over my face and roll over onto my back while releasing a small uncomfortable groan.

  There’s a dull nudge to my ribs, which I immediately ignore.

  Damned dog.

  The nudge comes again, making me groan louder. “Knock it off Otis. Just let me sleep a little bit of this hang over off and then we’ll play,” I lie.

  Then Otis chuckles.

  My body freezes. Otis is a dog, he can’t chuckle. Shit. If it isn’t Otis, who could it be?

  I’m trying to unscramble my brain and remember what the hell happened last night. I remember getting to the bar to hang out with Harlow and some other girls, I had way too many whiskey sours, hence this awesome hangover, Nixon came and we danced for a while.

  Then my body melts into the bed. It has to be Nixon.

  I finally muster up the energy to lift my arm off my face and open one eye in the direction that I was being nudged and confirm my thoughts.

  Nixon is sitting on the edge of my bed, his upper body twisted toward me and his bottom half is facing away, wearing only jeans that are unbuttoned and barely sitting on his hips.

  His chest and arms have small scars smattered across them but no tattoos and I can see a hint of ass crack, which must mean he isn’t wearing any underwear.

  “Good morning, sugar. Actually I should say good afternoon. You sleep like the dead, you know that?” he teases and leans back, resting his hands on the mattress and using them to hold his torso at an angle.

  “Shut up Nixon. I only sleep heavily when I’m drunk. Normally I wake up every time Otis even shifts on the bed.” Then I look around the room, trying to find Otis, and remember that he left the track with Nixon two days ago.

  “Speaking of, where the hell is my dog?” I grumble.

  “He’s still at my house. We can go pick him up as soon as you get your ass out of bed and drive me home. Since we caught a cab back here, I rode the Suzuki in your garage down to the bar and picked up your truck already. Did your fucking bike need to be pink?” he huffs.

  Picturing Nixon King riding my pink Suzuki down the road makes me want to laugh, if my head wasn’t throbbing like someone was playing a drum solo in it, that is.

  I fling the covers back from my bed, finally noticing that I’m only wearing a paper thin tank top that has the sleeve holes cut so low you can see my breasts through the sides and my pink lace thong from last night. I don’t remember changing once we came home last night. In fact, I don’t even remember coming home last night.

  I shoot my face up to his and narrow my eyes.

  “Nixon, did you change me?” I grit out. He just shrugs and smiles, so I narrow my eyes even more, until they are just slits, and wait for him to give me an answer. He finally lets out a puff of air and runs his hand through his messy brown hair.

  “Well yeah, but I had to. When we were leaving last night, or attempting to at least, you crashed into a group of people and had three different drinks spilled down the front of you. So you could have gone to bed smelling like bloody mary, whiskey and some girly fruity drink, or I could have changed you into something that didn’t smell. I chose option two.”

  Okay, that was actually pretty nice. Now I feel like a bitch, It’s not like we came back here and he stripped me and then we slept together.

  Oh shit. Did we sleep together?

  I clench my thighs together searching for any sign of soreness and don’t feel any, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t do it.

  “Where did you sleep last night, Nixon?”

  “Why do you think I changed you? I couldn’t sleep smelling all that alcohol mixed together on your clothes last night,” he smirks and waggles his eyebrows at me. Oh no.

  “We didn’t-“

  “No sugar, as much as I wanted to, we didn’t. You were trashed out of your mind. You couldn’t even walk straight and I’m not like that. I would never take advantage of you. Plus, when we do it I want you to be responsive,” he s
ays confidently.

  “When huh,” I answer.

  “Yes when. It’s inevitable, sugar. You’re going to have me between your legs in no time,” he smiles, his white teeth standing out against the dark scruff along his jaw line.

  “In your dreams King,” I roll out of bed and start heading to the connecting bathroom.

  “Do you need me to come scrub your back and make sure you’re clean everywhere else?” he sticks his tongue out and wiggles it around with moves that a porn star would be envious of.

  That movement causes me to pause and consider his offer for a second. If his tongue can do those moves in thin air, I bet they’d feel amazing between my legs. Then he starts to outright laugh and I think better of my answer.

  “You are an idiot, you know that?” I tell him, wishing I hadn’t actually seen that move he just did with his tongue. Now I’m pretty intrigued.

  “I’ve never been called an idiot before. Sexy, master, and even God, but never idiot,” he says with a thoughtful look.

  I shake my head. I’m sure women call him those names to his face, but I’d love to hear some of the creative names they call him behind his back. I could probably make a book out of all the ones I can come up with by myself.

  “I’ll hurry and shower and then we can head out to your house so I can get my dog back.”

  On second thought, Otis is a betrayer. Maybe I’ll take the longest shower in the world and delay getting him just a bit longer. He’ll probably end up wanting to stay at Nixon’s permanently by then.

  I walk into the bathroom and start up the shower to as hot as I can stand. Before I get in I turn on my iPod and let it blast angry chick music through the room then I jump in and thoroughly scrub the alcohol scent off of me.

  The sound of the bass coming from my speakers doesn’t help my alcohol induced headache, but if I have a lot of pain in my head then maybe I won’t think about the many naughty things I want to do with Nixon.