Living Dangerously

by Dee J. Adams

The whole idea still fascinated him. The fact that he’d always led the way when it came to sex, yet with Julie things were different. He purposely didn’t want to rush her or make her feel used, which in turn led her to do the initiating.

  It was fucking sexy as hell.

  Instead of telling her the truth, he let her take him under, take him to the most incredible sensations, where nothing mattered except her response, the softness of her kiss and the way she gave so unconditionally.

  He knew one thing for certain. He was falling hard for Julie Fraser. Harder than he’d ever dreamed possible. And because he had now, because he didn’t want to screw up now with the truth, he did the only thing he could do. He rolled her over and loved her until she came.

  * * *

  Desert landscape had faded away many hours ago and sun glared through the tall green pine trees in the state of Colorado. Allen glanced over at a peaceful Carrie Ann. She looked like an angel curled in the passenger seat of her car. But he knew better. He’d been horribly uncomfortable when he’d tried to sleep in the same spot. The chair reclined, but not enough to accommodate his legs, and he’d barely dozed as she’d taken the first eight-hour shift behind the wheel.

  The sun had risen hours ago and Allen welcomed the new day with a smile. They were almost a thousand miles closer to Julie than they’d been yesterday. At this rate, they’d get to the East Coast in record time. Despite the fatigue, Allen liked this idea. He liked that he was on his way to his destiny. He’d be the perfect birthday present for Julie.

  He couldn’t wait to see her face when she found out he’d been the one to send those flower arrangements. Maybe he’d even find a florist shop when they hit town and he’d splurge and buy her a similar arrangement for her birthday. Perfect.

  Allen yawned. He’d been driving since early morning and needed to take a piss. Then maybe Carrie Ann could take over for a while. He wouldn’t have any problem falling asleep at this point. He was wiped out.

  He pulled onto the ramp leading to a rest stop, and Carrie Ann stirred as if she knew instinctually that he’d gone slightly off course.

  She lifted her head and looked around. “What are you doing?” Her sharp tone implied he was the biggest idiot in the car and his grin vanished. She checked her watch. “You still have another two hours to go before it’s my turn.”

  Allen found her less and less attractive as they spent more time together. He’d had plenty of time to try to figure out what Julie saw in Carrie Ann as a friend, but hadn’t yet come up with a reason. She complained regularly and bossed everyone around constantly. A real treat to be around if a person wanted to be miserable.

  “Unless you want me to pee on your upholstery, we have to stop.”

  She rolled her eyes in that way his father used to when the man thought he was dealing with a moron. Allen had been the recipient of that look more times than he could count his senior year in high school. His dad never understood the importance of his video games. Who needed history and English when you could develop a game that millions of people would love—and pay—to play? It had been Julie Fraser’s comedy that gave him light and life. She’d saved him dozens of times.

  But Carrie Ann was not going to treat him like his dad had and get away with it. She made him want to do bad things. He hadn’t done bad things since he’d released his father from a world of misery.

  He’d have to talk to Julie about her. If Julie had grown tired of her best friend’s complaining, then Allen knew exactly how to deal with her. He’d gotten away with murder once already. One more time wasn’t going to kill him. Laughing at his own joke, he adjusted the number. Actually, two more times since he still had to lose the bodyguard.

  “Why are you laughing?” Carrie Ann asked. She ran her hands through her hair. It wasn’t long enough to wrap around her neck. A shame. But even if it had been, he wasn’t stupid enough to think hair was strong enough to choke her.

  “I was just thinking about how surprised Julie’s going to be when she sees us.”

  “That’s the fucking truth,” Carrie Ann agreed.

  Allen parked the car in the empty lot and relieved himself in the men’s room. His phone rang as he washed his hands. It was probably his boss wondering when he planned on coming back to work. How about never? In a perfect world his game would sell, he’d be with Julie and he wouldn’t need his fucking IT job. He let the voicemail answer. Once outside, he checked the call log and felt his jaw clench. His mother. She didn’t know how to leave him alone. But as long as he had a minute away from Carrie Ann, he hit Play to listen to the message.

  “Allie, it’s me,” her nasal voice droned. “Where are you? What did you do? The police were here looking for you.”

  What? Allen’s skin prickled. His heart slammed against his ribs as he walked slowly back to the car. He missed her next words and had to concentrate.

  “—in Oxnard, but they left their card and told me to call them as soon as I heard from you. Are you in trouble? Call me as soon as you get this.”

  The voicemail ended and he quickly deleted it. Allen took a deep breath to calm his racing pulse. This had to be about Julie. He hadn’t done anything that might get him into trouble with the cops. Not counting offing his father years ago. They had to be looking for strangers who’d sent her mail or packages and he’d done both. He ran a hand through his hair. Okay...not a problem. Once he found her and explained, she’d be able to tell the police that he wasn’t the one who wanted to hurt her. He planned to protect her. There was no better time to meet Julie in person.

  Call me as soon as you get this. His mother’s words echoed in his head.

  “Not a chance in hell,” he muttered.

  When he returned, Carrie Ann sat behind the wheel.

  “What’d you do, learn to drive from your grandma? I wanted to have a least another hundred miles behind us at this point.”

  Allen clenched his jaw. The lot was empty. No one knew they were there. He could get behind her and snap her neck faster than she could blink. That would warrant a police investigation. He might look like a nerd, but that didn’t make him harmless. “I went over the speed limit,” he said, working hard to control his anger.

  “Yeah? By what? Two miles an hour?” She rolled her eyes again and Allen felt his restraint slipping away. If she made one more comment. One more eye roll or gesture or if she even looked at him funny, he was going to fuck her up so bad, she’d beg him to kill her.

  “Look, sorry I’m hammering you on this. I just don’t want to be late and we’re going to cut it close.”

  Allen rolled his neck against his shoulders before getting in the passenger side. He leaned his head against the seat rest then turned and looked at her. “You asked me to do this so I’m doing it. For you, yes, but mainly for Julie.” And now to avoid a police investigation. “I suggest you stay the fuck off my back if you want the rest of this trip to be bearable.”

  Her eyes widened, her jaw slacked open, but a smile curved her lips. “Well, look who just grew a pair. It’s about time. Welcome to the real world, baby.” She started the car and peeled out of the spot.

  Allen resisted the urge to grab hold of the door handle. The bitch was fucking with him.

  Fine. He’d make this trip for Julie’s sake, but when they got to the East Coast, Carrie Ann was going to have a terrible accident that no one would be able to save her from. Now all he had to do was figure out exactly what kind of accident would take her the most quickly...and most painfully.

  * * *

  Carrie Ann set the cruise control at eighty-five. Probably about twenty miles an hour faster than Geekboy had gone the whole time she’d slept. His little outburst had surprised her. Apparently he had a breaking point. But didn’t everybody? She sure as hell did. Seeing Drew break down had crushed her. Most of all, she wanted the best for her brother and if taking Julie out of the picture meant he would function close to normal, then she had to try. He was her responsibility. She’d promised her mother she’d tak
e care of him.

  The more she thought about it, the more she had to concede a selfish reason as well. She was tired of playing second fiddle. She wanted to be on the A-list. Hell, deserved to be on the A-list.

  For so many years she’d been so close to stardom, a hairbreadth from fame, but she’d never quite reached it. She played sidekicks in movies and in real life as Julie Fraser’s best buddy. She was always the “and along with” and costarring, but rarely the headline. Thirteen fucking years of working for every job while her best friend got it all handed to her on a platinum platter.

  Julie wasn’t anything special. Carrie Ann had way more in the looks department, the talent department and the brains department. But Julie was the one with everything. Her house, her car—although why she drove a Prius when she could afford a fleet of Bentleys was still beyond Carrie Ann—her career. She had everything, and Carrie Ann didn’t see the justice in that.

  There had been a handful of years when just being seen with Julie put Carrie Ann in the spotlight enough to warrant a spike in her career, but after Nowhere to Hide, that had changed. She’d gone back to working for every role.

  Her knuckles tightened on the wheel.

  “Are you still pissed at me?” Al asked. His eyes were at half-mast with his arms folded across his chest. He yawned and Carrie Ann saw all the metal fillings in his teeth.

  “I’m pissed at myself,” she said, looking at the long stretch of highway in front of her. She didn’t even know where they were.

  “For bringing me along?” he asked. He might’ve been a geek, but he was an observant geek.

  “For expecting you to have my urgency,” she said. “I want to get there for her birthday and it’s not a big deal to you. I should’ve made it more clear.”

  “Fine. So I know. Can we get past it now?”

  Yeah, she wanted to pull over, shove him out of her car, hit the gas and leave him stranded on the side of the road. She could have too. It’d be easy. But then she really wouldn’t make it to the East Coast on time.

  “Consider me past it.” It was everything she could do to keep her voice steady and not mock him. How had she ever thought she could be with him on a regular basis? She usually considered herself a better judge of character. Besides, if he had all the money he boasted about, why did he live the way he did? There was something fishy about Al Gates. Something very fishy.

  Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time someone lied to get closer to her. Or to Julie. People knew her as Julie’s BFF so Carrie Ann always had to live with people befriending her just to meet Julie. But this guy had said he was her neighbor, so that didn’t fit the usual scenario.

  “So, where did you go to college?” A rich computer geek had to have gone someplace fancy. MIT or an Ivy League school. Someplace that made geeks into millionaires.

  “CSUN,” he said.

  “Cal State Northridge?” She hated asking stupid questions she knew the answer to, but she expected more than CSUN.

  He cracked open one tired lid and gave her a stink eye. “Yes. Why? You have an issue with CSUN? Where’d you go to school?”

  “No, I don’t have an issue with it. I just expected something else. I went to Cal Arts.”

  He huffed out a breath.

  “What the fuck was that?” Try as she might, she couldn’t hide the nasty in her tone. Not that she tried too hard. She zoomed up behind the semi in front of them and darted to the left lane to pass, flooring the accelerator.

  “It was the same reaction you had to my answer, only without words. At least I got my degree at a normal school.”

  Carrie Ann clenched her jaw tight. She’d heard that same crap from people for years. She’d auditioned and gotten into Cal Arts, and Julie had auditioned and landed her own fucking show at seventeen. Carrie Ann had been thrilled for her. She’d also been sure it wouldn’t last more than a few episodes. She’d been sure that busting her ass at a school geared for the performing arts would not only set her up to be well-rounded and versatile, it would give her the credentials needed when she went to future auditions.

  What a fucking joke that had been.

  She never should’ve spent three years of her life there. She’d have been better off trying to land an agent and more auditions.

  She took a deep breath to calm the anger raging through her system.

  “What’s got you pissed off now?” Geekboy asked.

  The fact that he was obviously watching her made her even angrier. “I thought you were sleeping,” she snapped.

  “Not with you going a hundred miles an hour. I’m kind of getting ready to die.”

  She glanced at the speedometer and took her foot off the gas. She’d passed that truck a long time ago, but hadn’t let up on the accelerator. “You’re not going to die. We’ve got a surprise party to get to. God isn’t going to punish you when you’re doing a good deed.” Like she really believed that load of crap. God had left her to the mercy of Hollywood years ago and Hollywood was not a kind master. It bled a person dry. Drew was the perfect example. He’d had hope and the chance at his dreams, but inevitably he’d been stripped of everything including self-respect and dignity. He’d seen what had happened with her staying in school and Julie getting her television show. He’d opted to jump right into auditioning and forgo his education. And what had that done for him? Hollywood had made a joke of his life. It had ruined her brother, made Julie a star, and it was the one place where Carrie Ann wanted to succeed more than anywhere else.

  If getting rid of Julie gave Drew back some of his mental health and set her on the right track, she had to try.

  Fuck this. She stepped on the gas.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Julie stretched in the big bed and opened her eyes as the afternoon sun threw brilliant rays through the window. Troy’s arm tightened around her waist and pulled her more snugly against his chest. She molded to the curve of his body, enjoying the feel of his growing erection against her ass. The man had stamina.

  He fascinated her with his contrasting character. His behavior said I’m cool, but his body said I’m ready to get down and dirty whenever you are. He didn’t act like a rutting stud, didn’t constantly handle her or seem to need to touch her. She didn’t get any type of possessive vibe from him, but as soon as they locked lips or touched each other, he was all about making the sparks fly. He was unlike anyone she’d ever dated.

  Dated. A word she absolutely could not use when thinking about this man simply because they’d never been on one date. Not the traditional kind anyway. Sure, they’d spent time together, and recently all their meals together, but could she classify any of their time together as a “date”?

  Had he picked her up and taken her to dinner or a movie or all the things couples were supposed to do when they begin a relationship? Had they shared a first kiss at her doorstep? None of the old-fashioned ways she used to date applied to this man.

  So what? It didn’t change the fact that, yes, dammit! They were in a relationship.

  So what if their beginning hadn’t been traditional. So what if they hadn’t talked about it. He’d been there for her through the toughest parts of her life and nothing had scared him off. He didn’t react to her in any way she was used to and now, as he rolled her over and nibbled her earlobe, as his big, warm hand eased down her stomach and ended between her thighs, she couldn’t think about anything but the way he made her feel. Maybe that was it. Because he treated her differently, she felt different around him. He made her feel special by letting her just be herself. She didn’t have to be the movie star, didn’t always have to be “on” or looking great every minute of the day. He’d seen her at her worst—multiple times—and liked her anyway.

  The pressure of his warm palm on her mound made her moan and push into his hand.

  “Like that, do you?” His question rumbled into her ear and a shiver raced through her. He slid two fingers deep inside her and another sound of need purred in her throat. His lips skated across her
skin, down to her chest where he swirled his tongue around her hard nipple over and over until by the time he sucked it into his mouth, she was arching off the bed. His fingers still penetrated her, pushed inside her over and over, driving her closer to sweet release.

  She could’ve come just from his mouth at her breast and his fingers pumping inside her, but Troy slid his lips farther down until his mouth replaced his fingers, and Julie lost complete thought. Blood rushed through her veins and the pounding in her head built to an all-time high. Troy alternately sucked, licked and lashed. He drove her crazy with intense need, overwhelming desire. She rode that sweet edge, the cusp of absolute heaven. Every new touch brought her an increment closer. She loved that wondrous spot, the point of no return. The seconds of bliss before the bliss. She pushed up against him, ready to take the final fall, ready to drown in repletion. Soaking wet, she whimpered when he spread all that moisture along the crease of her ass. Nerve endings popped and sizzled as he ventured to intimate territory, circling, pressing and going where no man had gone before. When he shoved two fingers inside her, one in each hole, she came with a force so intense, she cried out, her muscles clenching tightly, her spasms rocking her from the inside out. It was the most shockingly, surprisingly intense fall of her life.

  Shudders still wracked her as Troy slipped on a condom and pushed into her. The sudden thick invasion had her gasping for breath. His arms wrapped beneath her as he held her tight and pushed in over and over. It was so good. Just feeling his power, the way he wanted her, listening to his ragged breathing and touching his muscled back and sculpted ass. In four more hard thrusts, his orgasm tore through him as he stiffened on top of her, his hips tightly against hers, their bodies joined intimately.

  His harsh breathing tickled her ear and she smiled, loving the connection they shared. She hoped he felt what she did. Wanted him to know what they had was something special. Something she personally had no experience with.

  She really needed to tell him how she felt. The sooner she got that off her chest, the sooner she could move on. His lips hovered near her ear. His warm breath sent tingles across her nape. “Good afternoon,” he rumbled.