Friction

by L. D. Davis

  ***

  The scent of Alden’s skin woke me from my slumber. I didn’t even wonder at his ability to get into my locked room. He probably had a spare key somewhere, or even knew how to pick locks. I forced my eyes to open and looked right into his face. He was lying on his side facing me, watching me carefully.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hi,” I replied groggily. “What time is it?”

  “Like four in the morning. You’ve been asleep since at least seven.”

  I stretched my arms above my head and winced slightly. My ribs were still pretty sore. “Guess I was tired.”

  “Or it was the Xanax you took,” Alden said, frowning.

  How the hell did he know that I took Xanax?

  “You left the bottle on the bed,” he said, answering my silent question. “Why didn’t you talk to me instead of taking those damn pills, Noa?”

  “What was there to talk about?” I asked innocently.

  “Don’t try to pull that bullshit with me,” Alden snapped. “I want to know what happened when you had lunch with your friend, and I want to know why you ran away from me last night.”

  “I didn’t run away from you,” I said dryly. “You had company and I didn’t feel like being sociable.”

  “Or you ran away because you regret what happened in the car,” he said.

  Thinking about what happened in the car made my whole body heat up. I loved what happened in the car, and that’s what worried me most. For a brief time, Alden’s hands on my body, the friction that was between our bodies, and his mouth on mine had made forget all about Larson. It made me forget about everything. I was lost, so lost in him.

  I couldn’t afford to get lost. In anyone.

  “Okay,” I said, pulling myself into a sitting position. Alden followed suit. “I do regret it. In fact, I regret all of it. We shouldn’t be doing anything…physical. I don’t even like you like that,” I lied. “If you can’t keep everything platonic, I can’t continue from here.”

  Alden stared at me as if I had just told him that the earth was about to collide with the sun. His eyes were the widest I had ever seen them, and his mouth hung open in genuine shock.

  “You’re full of shit,” he said, his tone incredulous. “You are so full of shit.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m full of shit,” I snapped. “I’m telling you how it is, Alden.”

  “You don’t fucking mean what you’re saying, Noa,” he said, getting to his feet. “You know it and I know it. When I played that song for you, you felt something – don’t fucking deny it. When I kissed you, you kissed me back and I felt what you felt, so don’t fucking deny that shit, either.”

  “The only thing I felt was horny,” I shrugged it off. “But I’m perfectly capable of getting myself off.”

  “Bullshit!” Alden yelled, pointing at me. “If you didn’t feel anything then you wouldn’t have felt the need to take fucking Xanax.” He picked up the bottle off the table next to the bed and threw it across the room.

  “Maybe the way I was feeling had nothing to do with you,” I said, getting off the bed.

  “Right,” he said dryly. “That had something to do with your lunch with your friend.”

  “Right,” I agreed, walking toward the bathroom.

  “Well, then,” he said, following me into the bathroom. “If the kiss and everything else meant nothing to you, then it won’t hurt to repeat.”

  I turned around to tell him how stupid he was being, but I yelped when he put his hands on my waist and hoisted me up onto the vanity. Before I could get down, he had pressed himself between my legs.

  “What the hell, Alden!” I yelled, slapping at his hard chest.

  He grabbed my wrists and painfully yanked my arms down to my sides. He tried to kiss me but I turned my head away, cursing him. He pulled my arms behind my back and gripped my wrists in one hand. He put his other hand on my chin to force my head where he wanted it.

  “Stop it, you asshole!” I yelled, flailing against him. “You’re hurting me!”

  Immediately, he released my wrists, but before I could push him away, his lips were on mine, kissing me with vehemence. My goodness, it was hot. My womanly parts were heating up and moistening, clenching with need. I wanted to lace my fingers in his hair and kiss him harder, but the kissing would lead to touching. The touching would lead to his fingers sliding inside of me, priming me for what would come next: his entirely too big erection. I wasn’t one to fall in love just because I had sex with a man, but Alden…Alden would be different. Maybe I wouldn’t fall head over heels in love, but surely, I would be all kinds of fucked up from it, and the fact still remained that he was Alden Breck. He was incapable of being monogamous, therefore, he was unable to be properly claimed. And the more he kissed me, the more I wanted to claim him. So, I did what I had to do.

  I bit him. Hard.

  “Fuck!” Alden cried out, pulling away from me. A small trail of blood oozed out of his mouth and I felt sick for hurting him like that, but it was necessary.

  “I told you to stop,” I said, breathing heavily. My voice quaked as I continued. “I don’t want you, Alden.”

  He stared at me as he used the back of his hand to wipe away the blood. He didn’t speak; he only stared. I stared back, though my chest was heaving and my eyes were burning with unshed tears.

  “You’re a liar,” he finally said. His voice was soft, but it cut through me with ease. “You’re a fucking liar, but fine. We’ll play your way.”

  He left me alone in the bathroom without another word. I sat on the vanity trembling as I listened to the sounds of things crashing in his room a moment later. It quieted for a minute or so, and then I heard his footsteps pounding across the hardwood floor. Seconds later, I heard the door slam as he made his exit from the apartment.

  A few days later, in the back of the limo on the way to the gala, I kept nervously smoothing my dress and rearranging the way my hair fell over my coat. I was more nervous about the New York gala than I was about Philly. More A-listers were supposed to appear at the NY function, a lot more.

  I stole a glance at my number one A-lister. He was already looking at me, and he didn’t bother to look away when I caught him staring. I turned away, but I continued to feel his eyes on me.

  After Alden came back the afternoon after our fight, he was still visibly angry and hurt, but he tried to be nice. We went to a couple of museums together the following day and had dinner at one of the big steak houses. We chatted, argued, and teased each other, but it was all lacking in its usual gusto.

  Afterward, I went to work on my laptop and he disappeared until late into the night. The following morning, I went with him to a couple of the news stations where he talked about the upcoming gala, and then we spent the afternoon watching movies as it begun to snow outside. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, with a big empty space between us.

  Alden still held my hand when we went out, he still gave me little pecks on the cheek or the head, and he was still full of himself and poked fun at me, but there was no mistaking the rift that was between us. I knew that he was going out at night to do nasty things to other women and he knew I had secrets, but we said nothing more on either front. Sometimes I would hear him in his room or in his office or studio, murmuring in conversation on the phone. I wondered whom he was talking to, wondered if it was Tricia. I never asked, and he never told.

  The unspoken things were like water trickling down into our new foundation and freezing, slowly pushing us apart though no one could tell from the surface.

  Thursday morning, Alden did the radio shows and visited a couple of the group foster homes in the city, something he had also done in Philly one afternoon. I went with him to the foster homes and I couldn’t help but feel warm as I watched him interact with the kids. Often, he would slip up and start to curse but immediately replaced the offensive word with some other ridiculous word. I covered my lips to keep from laughing every time. At one point when he caught m
e, he gave me a wink and a smile that I probably didn’t deserve.

  He was remarkably good with children. He played and roughhoused, but seemed to be ever mindful of their smaller, more delicate bodies and egos. He had brought the same acoustic guitar he had played for me Sunday night. He let the kids play with it, and when a couple of strings broke, he didn’t seem to care.

  “You’re a natural with kids,” I told him on the way back to the apartment.

  He smiled and shrugged a shoulder. “I treat them as I wished I was treated as a kid,” he said, running his hands over the guitar. “I’m going to have my own kid to take care of. I’ll treat him the same way, try to give him a good, happy life.”

  I looked at him with surprise. “You want to have children?”

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Noa,” he said, his smile fading. Bitterness laced his tone. “I know I don’t seem like the type of person who can settle down and have a family, but it is something I want. You still don’t see who I am under the women, the drinking, and the partying and bad language. You still see what you want to see.”

  I stopped talking then, because nothing I could possibly say seemed like it would be the right thing.

  “Al, pull over so I can get out. Take Miss Eddington wherever she wants.”

  I had watched on with something like shock as Alden threw his guitar on the seat between us and got out of the car without another word. I had not been out by myself since I saw Larson. I told myself it wasn’t because I was petrified, but just because I had nowhere to go on my own.

  “Take me back to the apartment,” I told Al, hoping he didn’t hear the hysteria in my voice.

  I didn’t see Alden again until Saturday morning…after the kind men at the NYC police department released him from a holding cell for assault and disorderly conduct. Alden’s lawyers were very quick and efficient about getting the matter swept under the rug with a happy sum of money thrown at the man whom Alden had slugged, but the arrest still made the gossip news shows and blogs. It was an otherwise normal day in Alden Breck’s life.

  “What was the fight about this time?” I had asked Alden after the lawyers left the apartment.

  “Apparently, the girl I was hooking up with in the bathroom had a boyfriend. He didn’t like the fact that I was screwing his girl, but if he would have asked me nicely to stop, I would have and moved on to the next one.” He had grinned while he told me, grinned proudly. It was like he was trying to rub it in my face.

  Dick wipe.

  I brewed up the sweetest smile I had. “Hooking up with a stranger in a public bathroom and beating up her boyfriend while you were probably drunk out of your mind are all very exemplary parenting traits.

  His smug face fell just before I closed my door. I felt a little bad for it, but he deserved it. If he thought he was going to be able to adopt a kid with fame and fortune alone, he was wrong. It didn’t matter if the kid was his brother or not.

  I didn’t talk to him again until we were leaving for the gala and he told me I looked nice in my red gown. I had thanked him, but we said nothing more until the limo ride to the party. The more we crept along in traffic, the more anxious and fidgety I got.

  “Do you want…?”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. I assumed he was going to offer to finger me into relaxing again. Of course, I wanted him to finger me, but things were so awkward between us and I wasn’t sure that all of the sexual things going on were even a good idea.

  “I was going to ask you if you want a couple of shots before we get there,” he said patiently, and then gestured to the minibar in front of me.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a little stupid. “Sure.”

  He slid over close to me and reached over to the bar. He opened a little door and pulled out a bottle of Rey Sol Extra Añejo tequila. He poured two shot glasses and handed one to me. I wasn’t much of a drinker. I looked down at the glass with leeriness.

  “Don’t be a girl,” he teased and then swallowed his shot.

  “Last I checked, I was a girl,” I mumbled.

  “I agree,” he said, already pouring another glass. “Last I checked, you were a girl.”

  “Very funny,” I muttered and then took the shot.

  While the liquid burned my throat, Alden poured me another shot as he spoke.

  “Actually, it isn’t very funny at all,” he said with a frown.

  I ignored his remark and took my second shot. I was already feeling the effects warming through my body.

  Oh yeah.

  I could get used to that tequila, but not for two hundred plus a bottle.

  “Feeling better now?” Alden asked, looking down at me a few minutes later.

  “Yes, I think so,” I said. “Maybe one more shot?”

  “Nah,” he said putting the bottle away. “You’ll feel it when you stand up. I don’t want you to feel it too much and fall on your face on the red carpet.”

  “Okay,” I conceded and folded my hands in my lap to keep from fidgeting.

  “I can do it for you, you know,” Alden said quietly.

  “Do what?” I asked without looking up at him.

  “I can make you relax like I did before.” It was a whisper that barely reached my ears.

  My hands twisted in my lap.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said.

  “You need it, Little One,” he said, slowly running his hand down my leg. “I want you to feel better.”

  His hand was under my dress now, moving slowly back up my leg.

  “No, you don’t have to,” I whispered as I felt his hand waiting for entry between my clenched thighs.

  “I want to,” he whispered in my ear. “Open your legs and I’ll help you relax.”

  “I’ll just regret it later like I did before,” I said, trying to sound mean, but it came out unsure instead.

  “Yes, maybe so,” he said with his lips against the skin on my neck. “But at least you won’t be nervous now.”

  He nudged my thighs apart with his hand and quickly assailed my sex, running his fingers along the lace crotch of the panties I was wearing. I shuddered slightly as his thumb grazed over my clit.

  “Your panties are already wet, Little Noa,” he whispered in my ear as he nibbled on my earlobe. “Why is that? If everything we ever did in the past was a mistake, you wouldn’t be so fucking hot and wet for me right now. Tell me why you’re wet.”

  His thumb pressed down hard on my clit and started to massage it in small circles. I gently lifted my hips off the seat and licked my lips as I moaned.

  “Tell me why you’re wet or I’ll make you squirt all over your pretty red dress,” he demanded.

  My mother effin goodness.

  I almost didn’t want to answer so that he would make me squirt again, but I really didn’t want to do it in the backseat of a car, nor in my beautiful gown.

  “You,” I managed the one word as thumb continued to push me higher.

  “Me what?” he demanded, and pressed harder.

  “Unnhhh,” I moaned instead of giving him the answer he required.

  “I guess you’re going to ruin your pretty dress, Little One,” he said.

  Alden quickly spun me so that my legs were in his lap. He was careful not let my head hit the glass behind me. As he was busy shoving my dress up over my thighs, I tried to stop him.

  “Alden, no,” I said, trying to push away his hands. “Don’t.”

  “You wouldn’t answer me,” he said in a no nonsense tone. “I told you what would happen.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, shoving at his hands even as he started to tear my panties away. “I’ll answer now.”

  “Too late,” he said and tossed the black scrap to the floor. He pulled me closer so that my ass was in his lap.

  “You’re going to make me go to the gala without panties on?” I asked incredulously as he began to run a finger through my swollen lips.

  “You only have yourself to blame
,” he said, and without any further delay, he pushed two fingers inside of me.

  I cried out as my hips shot up off his lap. He put an arm across me to hold me in place.

  “Alden, don’t…mmmm…don’t make me do it. I don’t want to ruin this dress and uhhhh…oh damn…Alden…”

  “Okay, I won’t make you squirt – this time,” he said with a little growl at the end as he pushed his fingers in knuckle deep. “I’ll just make you come.”

  He looked down at his fingers moving in and out of me and groaned. “Noa, you’re so fucking beautiful. Even your cunt is beautiful. It’s so fucking perfect.”

  He pulled his two fingers out and replaced them with three, stretching me and sending me closer to my impending orgasm.

  “Alden,” I whimpered as I felt the pressure in my pussy building.

  “You’re so wet, Noa. I made you this wet, didn’t I?” he asked, looking into my face again. “It’s always me, isn’t it, baby?”

  I bit my bottom lip and nodded quickly as he pushed his fingers deep. I tried to circle my hips and grind onto those fingers, but his arm was still holding me down.

  “Please,” I begged, spreading my legs as wide as I could. “Please, Alden.”

  In answer, Alden’s thumb again found my clit. Moments later I was crying out his name and bucking my hips, and didn’t give a shit if Al could hear me up front or not. As I came, Alden moaned as he watched my face. He reached up and stroked my cheek until my body began to settle. He pulled his fingers out of my aching core and I could only watch, mesmerized, as he kept his eyes on me while he licked and sucked each finger that had been glistening with my excitement.

  “We’re arriving at the ball,” Al announced over the speakers.

  “Park, but don’t let us out yet,” Alden answered after pushing a button above us.

  “No problem, sir,” Al said.

  Alden helped me sit up and fix my dress. I ran my fingers quickly through my hair as he picked my panties up off the floor and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Beautiful,” Alden said before applying a soft kiss to my lips.

  I couldn’t help the stupid smile that appeared on my face.