Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  “Oh god,” I whispered as he began to let the rough pad of his finger circle, around and around, the tight little nub that ached for release.

  He was too far away now, his hips hammering into mine, and I found I loved it, the quickness, the urgency—higher and higher I went, burying my hands into my hair, my back arching, my whole body straining along with him. Each thrust made my pussy shiver and melt, and each circle of his thumb curled my toes.

  What if I can’t come? I thought suddenly, and I tensed beneath him.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Manny whispered. “You’re not getting out of this that easily...”

  I opened my mouth, panting, trying to summon the words to ask him what he was talking about, but in that moment he reared up and slammed our bodies together, burying himself so deep inside me I thought I could taste him.

  Then he circled his hips, grinding them around and around, his cock swirling inside me, and with one last slick little touch of his thumb, I went off like a bomb.

  The air seemed to leave the world. Sound faded. My eyes flew wide at the sudden rush of pleasure, at the immediate and complete breakdown of my thoughts, my feelings, my wants and needs.

  Manny ground his hips against me again, and everything that was Rose Alton dissolved into a thousand points of pure pleasure, burning away the fear and the uncertainty, the doubt and the anger and the dread.

  There was nothing now. Nothing but the quivering, shivering spasm of every cell in my body.

  The world faded, and when it came back everything was exactly as it had been before, and yet somehow different. Still impaled on Manny’s erection, my spine had bowed until I was practically doing a backbend, looking at the world upside down. Aftershocks rocked through me as my muscles went limp in the aftermath, and Manny, chuckling, slowly lowered me to the ground. Then, with a few soft, lazy thrusts that had me shivering and moaning, he found his own release, coming deep inside me before finally curling his body around mine and resting his forehead on my shoulder.

  The sound of our breathing came back to me, and for a long time I listened to it. We inhaled and exhaled in unison, and the heat of his breath coiling in the hollow of my shoulder made me shudder with pleasure.

  At last Manny moved, reaching between us and pulling his cock from my swollen cunt, and I ached for him to put it back, to do it again and again, but even I knew we were both probably well out of that age. Alas.

  And then I realized I’d just fucked Manny Reyes, and I had no idea what to do next.

  I licked my lips and pulled myself into a sitting position, feeling the slickness of our coupling between my pussy lips. Reaching down I pulled my panties back into place, but they were just as soaked as my crotch. I put my shorts back on and watched from the corner of my eye as Manny slid the condom off his cock and wrestled the semi-firm member back inside his own shorts. Then we were decent, and we looked at each other.

  His golden eyes met mine, and their intensity shook me.

  I chewed my lip. “So, uh,” I said. “What now?”

  He smiled. “We get back to the set.”

  I blinked. The set? Oh. Oh right. The set. Okay. That was fine. Good. Good deal. Scrambling to my feet, I brushed the leaves and wood from my clothes and shyly tried to fix my hair. It was wavy in good times, but downright bouncy and curly in humid places, and Hawaii definitely counted in that latter category.

  “Stop worrying,” Manny said to me, grinning. “You look great.”

  “Do I look like I just got fucked?”

  His smile was self-satisfied. “You look like you got fucked and stayed fucked.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I suppose so.”

  “Probably only for an hour though,” he said speculatively. “I ain’t saying that you won’t want to get fucked again tonight.”

  Yes please! every nerve in my body stood up and screamed like insane fangirls. The din drowned out my common sense which was trying to tell me something, something about getting involved in guys that didn’t display husband qualities, something about The Plan, but just then the breeze picked up and I breathed in, letting the plumeria-laden air fill my lungs, and told my common sense to shove it. Common sense didn’t belong in Paradise.

  That’s what got Adam and Eve in trouble, my common sense grumped, but I ignored it. Pulling myself into a crouch, I watched as Manny peered out from behind our tropical corner, into the back yard.

  “No one there yet,” he said. “I think we’re safe. We should find a gate around here somewhere.” Pushing past the enormous leaves, he stepped into the garden, then turned back and held his hand out to me. I reached out and took it and he led me around the perimeter until, just as predicted, he found a gate at the front of the house. I dearly hoped no one was home, and I held my breath as we tiptoed toward it.

  Manny pushed down on the latch.

  The air exploded into security system sirens.

  “Time to run!” Manny called, laughing, and then we were both out the gate and pounding down the gravel road to the beach, giggling the whole way.

  Chapter Nine

  Three days later filming had ground to a standstill and I was having the time of my life.

  The video was going poorly, not because of any particular bad behavior on the part of the cast but because, every day, their big-name director inevitably hated all the footage he had shot the day before.

  “No good!” he shouted when we turned up at the crack of dawn the second day. “None of it was any good! Garbage!” He waved his hands in the air and stomped up and down the beach, muttering to himself.

  “Great,” Sonya muttered. “This is going to be a fun one. My nose is already a little pink and peeling.” Scowling, she touched it and winced.

  “We need more beer,” Carter said to Manny. After we’d run from the cops and showed up on set late and sex-drugged the day before, Manny had realized we’d completely forgotten to buy food or beer, so I was sent back out on a beer run with the surprisingly robust collection of coins and dollar bills we’d been given for our performance. Careful comparison shopping led to me returning to the set with a case of two dozen bottles of golden ale and a bag of ice, which Manny had told me to be sure I got. I’d watched as he took half the beers out of the case, then dumped the ice into the cardboard box. Then he’d grinned up at me.

  “Mexican cooler,” he’d said, and I shook my head. It had been greatly appreciated, and the rest of the day I could only notice that the band seemed to be having more fun in the sun than previously.

  “No drinking!” The director had stormed back over to us, his hands balled into fists. “I need your full attention during this shoot. Do you want to make a video, or art?”

  No one had responded, and I had the distinct impression that the band just wanted to make a break for it. It fell to me to sneak beers onto the set in opaque plastic water bottles, and that had been my last three days: sitting in the sand, sunning myself, reading free romance novels I’d downloaded off the internet, and making the occasional beer run. About the middle of the third day of filming I’d suddenly realized that I wasn’t clenching my jaw.

  The realization had shocked me. As long as I could remember, I’d ground my teeth and clenched my jaw until I gave myself headaches. Now I was loose and free, relaxed from head to toe. And why not? I was in the most beautiful place in the world, and I had a fuckbuddy who seemed intent on showing me just how much I’d been missing by adhering to the Plan.

  The first night after filming, Manny and I had returned to our hammock and had promptly sixty-nined our way to a deep, blissful sleep. I’d never really enjoyed the act of giving a man oral sex, but with Manny it was different somehow. He joked with me, made me laugh as he buried his head between my thighs, lapping and sucking at my tight, aching clit, fucking my entrance with his stiffened tongue, and he’d had no expectations that I would return the favor, which was probably why I decided that, just this once, I wanted to give it a try. See if I liked it.

 
To my surprise, I did like it. The way Manny responded to my touch, my hands on him, my mouth and lips and tongue slipping over the head of his cock, my fingers tight at the base of his shaft—it aroused me. The more I sucked, the faster his tongue went between my legs, lapping at the swollen folds there, coaxing little sighs from me as I struggled not to let myself be heard over the sound of the surf. I didn’t want anyone to know what we were doing, even though I was pretty sure they already knew.

  When my orgasm broke over me, I took Manny’s cock as deep into my throat as I could, stifling my cries of pleasure, and when he’d pulled away from me and shot thick, hot ropes of cum over his undulating abs, I was actually sad that I hadn’t been allowed to swallow it. Then I remembered that the Plan involved not getting any easily preventable diseases.

  It was strange how Manny made me forget myself.

  And that was how the days went. Long and warm in the sun, and scorching hot at night, although usually by the time filming wrapped up we were too sleepy to do the actual deed, but there was touching. Kissing. Lazy orgasms and lazy conversations until we both fell asleep. We never talked about anything serious—Manny’s sole purpose in life, it seemed, was to make me laugh—and I realized that Manny was forcing a mental vacation on me.

  Don’t worry, I could hear him telling me, not in words but in his deeds. Not now. Don’t think about what waits back home. Be here. With me.

  I had never in my life managed to forego worry, or remove my problems from the forefront of my brain. It was strange. But nice.

  Now, three days after filming had started, everyone’s nerves were on edge—except for mine, of course—and the director still hated almost every single shot. The sun was high in the sky and my little e-reader was running out of batteries. I’d probably have to take a nap or something after lunch.

  Oh no, my brain thought. Not a nap. How will we ever cope?

  I smiled. Even my sarcastic inner voice was mellowing out. It hardly rebuked me for my egregious failure to stick to the Plan any more.

  Yawning, I turned my e-reader off and closed my eyes while I stretched in the heavy, warm air. A nap was just the sort of thing I could get into right about now, even. No need to waste time of eating food. Just...curl up in the sand and sleep...

  A shadow fell over me and blocked out the blissful warm red behind my eyelids. “You look like you had a late night.”

  I opened my eyes and looked up to see Manny grinning down at me. I smirked back up at him. “Yeah,” I said, “well, if someone hadn’t been so good at convincing me to stay awake I’d be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” I raised a hand to him and he reached down and clasped it, pulling me to my feet, and though I had learned to temper my reaction somewhat, I couldn’t deny that the merest touch of his skin on mine still gave me the shivers, as though electricity arced from his body to mine...

  “I’ve never understood that phrase,” Manny said. “Does it mean you’re a squirrel? Are squirrels supposed to be particularly chipper in the mornings or something?”

  “Actually,” I said as he pulled me to my feet, “the phrase is thought to come from fox hunting, because if you wanted to have a good chase with a fox you wanted it to be bright-eyed instead of dull-eyed, and bushy-tailed instead of limp and lifeless. A lethargic fox would be a really boring hunt.”

  Manny made a face. “Yeah, and then you chase down that bright-eyed fox and turn him into a dead fox. Total waste. The end result is the same: dead-looking fox.”

  I stuck my tongue out. I hadn’t thought of it like that. “Thanks,” I complained as Manny slipped his arm around my shoulders—my hand found his waist, enjoying the stretch and flex of the lean muscles there—and steered me down the beach. “Now every time I hear that phrase or use it or whatever I’ll be thinking, Yeah, but you’ll be dead soon, so why bother? Like I needed more reasons to stay in bed.”

  “I live to serve,” Manny said. “And I’d like to say that I know many ways to persuade you to stay in bed, but sometimes you need a change of scenery. Thus: out of bed.”

  I frowned and looked around, suddenly realizing that we were not heading toward the mess tent, but away down the beach, against the flow of evacuating crewmen and nervous interns. “Wait,” I said. “What?”

  His arm around my shoulders tightened, and I felt a sudden need to lean into him, to place my head on his chest and listen to his voice rumble in his ribcage. I resisted the urge, if only so I could divine what he had in mind for lunch. Plenty of time to burrow later.

  I looked up into his face, but he just smirked down at me, his golden eyes twinkling. “A change of pace, Rosalita. I promise you’ll like it.”

  I gave him a quelling look, but I suspected that Manny actually fed on quelling glares and exasperated sighs, like some kind of frustration-vampire. His grin certainly grew wider when he realized how annoyed I was with him.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I just like to know what’s going to happen before it happens.”

  Manny snorted. We were well up the beach by now, and no one was around us. Giving a quick, furtive look around, Manny lowered his voice and whispered: “But if I tell you, it will ruin the surprise.” Then he led me up the beach and into the trees.

  “I hate surprises.”

  “Why am I not surprised by that?”

  Argh! Exasperating, ridiculous man! Normally I’d hate it when someone didn’t let up on their annoying behavior.

  So why did my heart glow whenever he teased me?

  Unease shot through me, and I shoved the thought away and cleared my throat as leaves brushed over my skin, making me shiver with delight. “Uh, anyway...” I rallied my thoughts. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going on a trip,” he said.

  I frowned. “What kind of trip?”

  “A long trip. One that is going to get me in deep shit.” The tone of his voice told me that he found the prospect of being in deep shit extremely amusing.

  I shook my head. I was never going to understand this man. Not that it mattered. “No really, what kind of trip?” I asked again.

  “Oh, Rosalita, where is your sense of adventure?” he said. “Just relax and let old Uncle Manny take care of everything.”

  “Ew. If you’re my uncle, that makes everything we’ve been doing really creepy.”

  He turned and winked at me. “Not that kind of uncle,” he said. “I’m more like the hot family friend that your dad went to college with and I’m still young and fun at heart and you’re all, ‘Oh, he’s so handsome and experienced, I’m going to bang him,’ and then we do it on your parents’ bed.”

  My whole body dissolved into shivers at the description. It was so...taboo. So forbidden. And so impossible.

  “How does that work with you being younger than me?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Rose,” he said, “you sure do know how to ruin a good fantasy.”

  I colored. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I like it.”

  “You like it when I’m a killjoy?”

  “I like you.”

  I opened my mouth, but really, what does one say to that? Shutting it again, I struggled to keep pace with Manny. In all aspects of my life, apparently.

  We broke through the trees and found ourselves at the highway. I had no idea what Manny was planning and it was driving me crazy. Perhaps he wanted to slip into town for a quick drink? Or...or go busking again?

  If I were Manny Reyes, I thought, what would I be planning?

  The answer was that I probably wouldn’t be planning anything, because Manny wasn’t the type to plan things. So what would Manny Reyes do?

  We drew up to the side of the highway. Then Manny stuck out his thumb.

  I gasped. “Manny!”

  “What?” he said. He was grinning at the oncoming cars.

  “Hitchhiking is dangerous!”

  He shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “I mean, don’t worry, you’ve got me along to pr
otect you. I know how to knife fight.”

  I didn’t know whether or not to take him seriously. “I don’t know if that’s going to help,” I said. My nerves spiked through the roof as a car signaled that it was swerving over to pick us up. I swallowed around my suddenly dry tongue.

  “Sure it will,” Manny said. “The second I sense we’re in danger, I’ll slit their gizzards.”

  I scowled. “Gross. And just where is your knife?”

  Manny’s face fell slightly as the car pulled alongside us. “I, uh, may have forgotten it back on the mainland.”

  Of course, I thought, and then the car pulled up next to us. It was a low-slung minivan, and a sweet-faced older couple peered at us through the open windows.

  “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to hitchhike?” the woman asked me in a Midwestern accent. “You two had better get in before something bad happens to you.”

  I ignored Manny’s grin as I slid the back door open and clambered inside.

  * * *

  Two hours later we stood at the foot of a towering waterfall in the middle of the lush forest.

  I gaped.

  High above me water tumbled down in huge torrents, splashing into an emerald green pool at the bottom. Rich green plants surrounded us, and the sun sparkled on the water, fracturing it into thousands of diamonds.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Pretty good, right?” Manny said.

  “You planned to take us here?” I said. “I would have agreed in a heartbeat.”

  Next to me, Manny laughed. “Nope,” he said. “I thought of it when Rick and Shelley—” Our middle-aged chauffeurs from Wisconsin. “—said they were coming this way.”

  I shot him an outraged glare and squeaked with indignation. “What?” I said. “You had no idea where we were going?”

  He grinned at me. “My dear, I know this island like the back of my hand. No matter where we were headed, I’d know somewhere great to go.” He spread his arms. “Et voilà!”

  I turned and looked again. The warm breeze wafted across my face, bring the scents of growing things and moving water to me. It was...perfect.