by Aurelia Fray
"What girl?" He spins his head around to see who I’m talking about. When he realises we are definitely alone, he pours the tar-black Joe into a small cup and sits his fine ass back down. He stares straight into my eyes and responds to my question.
"Random model. She was the best I could get on short notice. Nothing like you in looks, which is partly why I kept a soft focus. Did you like it?" he asks. I shrug, answering his question with one of my own.
"Was okay. Did you listen to the track?”
"Yeah."
"What did you think?”
He shrugs. "Was okay," he replies with a dark grin. He leans across the table, his forearms tight and lean, his fists clenched. His eyes never leave mine. He smiles wider, enjoying the way I watch him. "Listen, I can play disinterested all day but we both know we are just wasting time. I know you liked my work or I wouldn't be sitting here. You know I like yours, baby, or I wouldn’t be fucking sitting here. So let’s not waste time screwing with each other. I know you want to see what I've got for you. For what it’s worth, I think you are going to eat it up."
Holy fuck. He was saying all the right things for all the wrong reasons. Shit.
"Sure, tell me your ideas." I exhale on a stumbling breath.
"It's Xadian by the way."
"Hmm?"
"My name. Xadian or Xade, if you want to be lazy about it."
He gets up and strides purposefully towards me. His dark jeans are well worn. The black t-shirt, looser than yesterday’s, has a band logo on it that I do not recognise. This close to me, I can smell his cologne. It fills my lungs like air, sweet and musky and male. I take a deep breath, pulling him deep into me and try not to react as he sits in the chair next to mine.
"Here," he whispers against my cheek, leaning in to hit the play button on the laptop. The intro to the single fills the room followed by my voice drawling out the first line.
The lyrics wrap around us and the screen dims to a hazy red. Lips move on screen, synching to my lyrics—thick, pouty, red lips— Kissable lips. Xadian speaks over the playback.
"You sing about vulnerability, but your videos sell sex, power and control. There is a disconnection between your songs and your image. So we need to do something about that."
I watch him watch the screen. Those hypnotic lips and nothing else fill our sight. No gimmicks, no scantily clad women, no chained up men or wild animals. Xadian closes his eyes, breathing in to the rise and fall of the harmony as my boy Keller shreds his guitar.
"This bit…” he says and then does something so fucking sexy. He sings my words back to me and I swear I’m going to come in my lace boy shorts. If I do, I might give them to him as a trophy. It would be the first time—since I was a teen—that a guy made me lose my shit without touching me.
"That, right there, is what we are going to hang the concept on," he says out of nowhere, forcing me to think about the lyrics because I am way too focused on his deep, fluid voice.
Lean in. Lean in.
Drink me up, take me in.
I wanna feel you on me.
Feel you on me, baby, taking over.
Master of me.
My Master be.
"You don't think that's about sex?" I ask him. It pretty much screams sex, power and control to me but, if he thinks otherwise, I would hear him out.
"You are asking to be taken care of: protected and loved unconditionally." His reading of my lyrics makes me feel a little nervous. He is stripping the song bare and I know he is right, but I wonder how he is able to see through it so easily.
"Strange, because I thought that I was asking to be fucked by a man who knew what the hell he was doing." I shrug, trying to lighten the seriousness of his mood. Xadian just stares at me. His eyes are kind but unforgiving too. He sees through me, through my lyrics and isn’t going to sit and listen to my shit. "Okay, so say we go with your lovey-dovey shit. What then?” I speak to break the tension his scrutiny evokes but he doesn’t let it slide.
He snorts. "You think being taken care of, adored, worshiped and protected is lovey-dovey shit?"
"It's not fucking."
"No, you're right, it's not. It's better," he informs me with that shit-eating grin. I want to tell him I wouldn't know but I'd be admitting to never having had someone respect me enough for sex to mean something more than sweaty rutting. Don't get me wrong, I loved my nasty sex, I just had nothing more meaningful to compare it to. I honestly believed sex with feelings was just a fictional concept made up to sell books, movies, and sentimental pop songs by ex-Disney princesses.
Xadian observes my reaction to his words and, from the way his eyebrows raise in surprise, I can see I might as well have spoken my thoughts aloud because the smug bastard has just read them in my face anyway.
"Never?" he asks. I shake my head and bite my lip. The unconscious gesture does something to Xadian though. He becomes distracted. His chin lifts slightly, his lips pout and his pink tongue darts out to lick the lower lip.
Shit, that is sexy.
"I can see I’m going to have to convince you that I am right," he declares without looking away from me. His eyes darken even as I gaze at him, he rolls his shoulders as though readying for battle.
Yum. Wait. What were we talking about again?
"The video!" I say aloud, answering my own damn question.
"Yeah. I’m going to pitch my idea to you, but I need you to do as I say. Do you think you can handle that, Gee?" His hand reaches out and strokes my cheek. I should slap it away or make a snide comment or something, but I just nod because his touch feels so good.
"Sure," I whisper as my eyes close. I intend to blink, to rest my lids a second and break the intense connection of his stare, however my eyes stay closed and I focus on the barely-there nature of his sensual voice.
"Let's take off your jacket. I need you to be comfortable,” he mutters, sweeping the cropped leather garment from my shoulders. “Up on the table,” he demands. Normally pushy men rile me. I don’t often let people tell me what to do, Desire-the-Douche is a prime example of this. I can only take it for so long before my nature kicks in and I mouth off. Yet, Xadian is different. He intrigues me and instead of putting him in his place, I go with it. I want to see what he plans to show me. He thrills me.
I boost myself onto the desk. The wood feels cold against my black skinny jeans but I ignore it. I have a feeling I might be warming up soon, especially if he carries on staring like he can’t get enough of me. I stare back. Unexpectedly, there, in the heat burning in his eyes, and the slight twist at the corner of his lips, is that sense of familiarity again. Is he setting off the spidey-senses or is it just that this man makes me horny? Who can fucking tell? The tingles he arouses within me are pretty much in the same place anyway. I keep my mouth shut and cocked into a perfect cheeky smile. I wait for his next instruction and try not to breathe too raggedly.
“Slide back. That’s it. Good girl.” God that sounds hotter than I would have imagined. His praise splits my smile a little wider, my eyes cut away in a nervous excitement. “Lean back until your back is flat against the wood. Yeah, that’s it. Now get yourself comfortable and relax. I want you to close your eyes whilst I set up.”
He leaves the room but is back in minutes with a camera on a tripod. It is not serious kit in the slightest. He sets it up at the far end of the room. I estimate that it will capture my shoulders to hips in its narrow range. At the opposite side of the room, he places two chairs. One blocks the door and the other sits just off-centre of the camera’s focus, keeping him in shot throughout. On this chair he places a mini tripod and his smart phone. I wonder if he is trying to make a point about skill over equipment and then I realise that I don’t care. This is just a trial run. Just the pitch.
While he sets up and fiddles with the focus on both cameras, I do as he requested and make myself more comfortable. I pull my hair out from underneath my body and lift it away so that I won’t tug it out with any sharp movements. Shit like that hurts
and I don’t want to be screaming like an idiot if I can avoid it. Xadian looks over as I fumble with my hair.
“Take it out of the elastic,” he instructs as he sits in his chair. I scoot up and pull my long blond hair up and over my shoulder. I unwind the elastic that holds it neatly back and I want to protest. It looks like shit and needs the gifted hands of a stylist, but he gazes at me in a way that says, “don’t speak,” so I don’t. I don’t say a word.
“Lay back, baby.”
I lift my hair and hang it over the side of the desk. My shoulders are against the wood surface. I wait. The music starts again from somewhere in the room. For some reason it feels slower, moodier, than before. I like it.
“Run your left hand over your hair,” he directs. “Stroke the side of your face with the tips of your fingers and then bring them down to the hollow of your neck.” I do this and feel a current of electricity flowing through my fingers and into my flesh. Goosebumps rise up wherever I touch. I fight a shiver. I feel powerful and vulnerable all at once and it’s driving me wild.
“Lower now. Trace every curve, baby. I want you to feel wherever the music takes you.”
As alive as I feel from his words, and the tingling touch of my own fingertips, a cold slither of ice slips down my spine. Reality creeps around the illusion he is trying to create. I am too aware that this is my office, too aware of the camera on me, of the stranger directing me. My movements become stilted and unsure.
Just as I am about to tell him to stop, he shocks the shit out of me. Xadian stands between my legs and pulls them apart. I am still fully clothed and shouldn’t be feeling the flush of heat or embarrassment of being exposed to him in this way. I mean, fuck. I’m not even exposed, but he is there, between my legs, and so fucking close to my pussy, covered or not, that I feel sure he will sense my desire. His large hands grip my upper thighs. The power of his grasp sears me through the material. His thumbs are so close to brushing the seams of my jeans where both legs meet at the crotch. He leans over so that I am witness to the intensity in his eyes.
“Relax. Let me show you.” He takes my hand. Releasing my left thigh, he presses his fingers between mine until it looks like I’ve sprouted octopus fingers, and then caresses me with my own hand. It feels crazy good. His other hand comes into play and follows the path up and around my body. I suddenly want to be naked. I know that his touch, our touch, will burn me. Our hands slide up, slip down, grab, pinch, pull, squeeze, and stroke with abandon. No zone is forbidden and every touch is like fire.
I love it.
Then he lets go and returns to his chair. He restarts the track and I’m instantly reminded of why we are here; of what this is really all about.
“Gee!” he warns. I try to hold onto the feelings he provokes within my body. His soothing voice, calling out commands, eases me. I listen to him.
“Stroke your neck. Use your palms to push up those beautiful tits, baby. Lift your back, arch up as if you are reaching for me. Push both hands down your body, all the way until they are between your legs. Oh yeah, that’s it. Now slow it down and look at me. Slow it all the way down until your hands stop over your heart. Great. Now face your head this way. Your eyes on mine, tell me with only your eyes, Gee, tell me everything you want from me.”
And I do.
In that instant, my mind screams out through my eyes, begging him to hear me. The words, I yell, shock me.
Hold me. Want me. Caress me. Protect me. Guide me. Shield me. Love me.
Xadian stands up. He clicks off the camera phone and then strides purposefully towards the tripod and switches off the other device too. I try to sit up and pull myself off the table. Before I can, he is there between my thighs again. His face leans into mine.
“I heard you,” he says, his voice a rough whisper, “I fucking heard you, baby.”
I feel an unfamiliar and unwanted tingling at the corners of my eyes. The warning of impending tears surprises me. I haven’t cried in years. I spent far too much of my childhood, shrivelled in one corner or another, weeping my guts out. As soon as I ran away from my dull-ass life, my overbearing mother and the asshole who liked to remind me that I would never be more than shit on his shoes, I made a promise to never let anything in—never feel deeply enough for it to hurt.
I was all cried out.
Gigi Shade was not the weak little girl that Regina Mallory had once been. Reinventing myself had cemented my own personal strength. Regina might have needed comfort but Gigi would take whatever she wanted. I stripped away the worst of me and left only the strongest parts standing and it worked too. I was hot, talented, driven and I was going to be happy. Someday soon it was all going to pull together and I would be happy.
Yet, here I am and I swear I am about to cry. Not because of some fucked-up lovey bullshit between us, just because of everything. Because of the shock at my own silent prayers, the humiliation of laying myself so bare, of the stupidity I feel at believing him and of the hope I have bubbling up inside that really really wants him to have heard me. I barely know this man and I want him to look after me. Whatever we’re paying him is not nearly enough, if he has me believing my own bullshit.
Before these thoughts have time to twist into a sharp comeback. Before my tears even have time to wet my lashes, Xadian leans down and presses his mouth to mine.
His kiss is electric.
I feel it right down to my tingling toes. His hand reaches behind my head and pulls me into him. The kiss intensifies. His tongue meets mine, claiming dominance. My inner bitch has come to heel for this man and I have no idea why. Gently, and without breaking the union of our lips, he tugs me to my feet where I, unsteadily, lean into him.
“I want you,” he admits and the words undo me. I don’t need to answer, I am already unbuckling the big, black leather belt at his waist in a desperate bid to free him from these stupid jeans. I think I might have hummed something close to "about fucking time" but I can’t be sure.
His mouth is on my throat. I franticly pull and yank at his clothes as he slowly, gently, teasingly nibbles at the spot behind my ear. I hear him chuckle when I grumble, “Fucking jeans are glued on!” He removes my hands before easily opening the buttons. His firm cock springs out and into my eager grip. I am only too happy to grasp him. I feel him, quantify him in my mind and am not disappointed. He laughs when I lick my hand, slicking it up, before reaching down and sliding it up and down his dick in a firm fist. He pulls off the layers of ripped vests and tees that I am wearing and traces the satin of my neon-pink bra. His fingertips are so calloused and rough that I can feel them on my skin, through the fabric.
My nipples sting. I am so turned on, it fucking hurts. He relieves them by pulling the fabric down and capturing one, then the other, with his mouth. My free hand grasps at his cheek, pulling him away when the suckling and nibbling sensations become too much. His mouth doesn’t stay empty for long though. The instant I pull him away from my breasts, he takes my mouth again.
“This isn’t what I meant to happen,” he alleges between frantic kisses, “I intended to show you more.”
“Show me more later, Xadian, right now this is all I need,” I answer. He nods against my face, his stubble rubbing across my cheek as he fuses himself to me. I love the skin-to-skin thing. I love the way he melds into my flesh as if he is trying to crawl inside me—like he isn’t complete without me.
“It is a promise then. More later, for now I’m going to fuck you up against this wall and hear you curse as you come. Sound good?” He growls, spins me around and presses me to the wall. He moves so fast, I am not sure how he manages it, but he has me tight to the wall. His left hand clutches my neck, his long fingers extend up into my hair. He places enough force to keep my face against the cool brickwork as he glues himself to my back. My breasts are compressed; they pool out in excess either side of me. His right hand reaches down, a warm finger tracing a bulging boob, then skilfully removes what little clothing I am still wearing. I can feel his stiff cock a
gainst my searing hot skin. He pushes, grinding it against my ass as he whispers at my ear.
"No games. No foreplay. No time wasting, baby. Tell me you are ready to take me."
"I’m so fucking ready."
"Good girl."
His right hand slides down to rest flat across my aching mound and then he tugs, slides, part lifts me backwards in one skilful motion that has my backside jutting out in invitation and my back arched in readiness.
"Hands on the wall above your head. Use them to brace yourself off the wall when it gets too rough."
Holy fuck. When not if.
I fucking loved this man. I was feeling all kinds of crazy right now. Not just hot, or excited, or horny but commanded and desired. I was still as much in control. I gave him my trust, gave him the control he exuded over me and I could take it away at any point.
He is between my legs, his knee nudges them apart. The coarse fabric of his trousers scratches against my sensitive flesh. I glance backward to be sure and yeah, he has only pulled his pants down enough to screw me without friction burns or restriction. I don't know why, but the immediacy of his desire—the fact that he doesn't want to waste the time he could spend fucking me up the wall, by pulling down his trousers—turns me on even more. His desire fuels mine.
He keeps that one hand pressed against my mound, whilst he slides his rock hard dick up and down my dripping channel. He slicks himself up in my wetness and without hesitation presses the swollen tip against my tight opening. I am breathing heavily, anticipating the sting of his entry. There is nothing better than the stretching sting of a firm cock slipping inside.
As he penetrates I feel it, but not where I expect it. Xadian attempts to distract me from the burn by pinching my engorged clit and boy does it work. The acute pleasure-pain has me reeling. My head doesn't know which pleasure to focus on. He spins his fingers around in teasing circles upon the nub and then slides them between my lips, spreading them fully to the cool air ricocheting off my pussy with each of his smooth slides. He leans back and watches himself pump slowly inside me. In and out. In and out. I love the way he hums his desire. The sound is deep and reverberates at the back of his throat. It sounds like indulgence and pleasure.