“But that’s not what you’re proposing.” Desperation leaked into her tone.
“I don’t want to break up the family, but we are going to tell him while I’m here, and it’s going to have large versions of the truth attached to it.” He felt like an ass at the frown she wore. “It doesn’t have to be today. I’ll do you the same favor you did me back then, and give you a few days to be okay with it. You can approve what I tell him, as long as you don’t censor the important details.”
*
Susan’s life was littered with awkward dinners. At the country club. For Dad’s work. School functions. Church gatherings. But the scowl Andrew wore when he emerged from the kitchen with Kandace unsettled her.
As they sat to eat, the siblings relaxed, and Andrew’s joking attitude roared back full force. Lucas spent a lot of time rolling his eyes, but Susan was entertained.
“Susan, isn’t it?” Kandace turned to her. “I understand you’re not in the industry.”
“No. I’m a dancer.” It felt awkward to claim a job she didn’t have yet, but something stopped her from saying, I intern for my dad.
Kandace’s expression drooped. “I see. I didn’t think there were a lot of places for that here.”
“It’s a tough industry anywhere. But I’m trying to make the season ticket with Ballet West. Once I get my degree, I’m going to teach. I’m hoping junior high or high school.”
“Oh.” Kandace’s eyes grew wide. “You’re actually a dancer.”
“As opposed to…?”
Andrew gave a snort laugh. “A stripper. Told you she doesn’t approve of my associates.”
“Could we not do this?” Lucas dropped his face into his hands, muffling the last of his plea.
Susan felt bad for him. Dad embarrassed her all the time, though his comments were more like, She’ll be an old maid soon. I’m hoping someone respectable snatches her up before then.
“Some of the girls I know from auditions work at Southern Exposure.” She could balance a neutral, clean conversation with all sorts of topics. Another thing those awkward dinners taught her. “Some of them do it for money. Most love it. They’re totally sweet. But I could never do that; I’d chicken out.”
“Me too.” Lucas used his fork to chase peas around his plate. He looked up at Susan. “When you do the ballet thing, how do you ignore the eyes on you?”
She didn’t. That was the problem. “When I figure that out, I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” He smiled.
The conversation slid from one topic to the next after that, until Susan and Andrew wished Kandace and Lucas a good evening, and made their way back to Andrew’s rental car.
“I like your family,” Susan said as they pulled onto the main road. “They remind me of us, when we’d all get together.”
“Us?”
“My family.” She relaxed in her seat and watched the scenery pass by. Though it was barely five, the sun was vanishing. He made a choking noise, and she glanced at him. “What?” she asked.
He made an exaggerated show of clearing his throat. “Nothing. I don’t know them, so I can’t say.”
“Well you can’t go based on anything Mercy told you. She left us behind.”
“Right. That’s how it went down.” He pointed the car toward downtown Salt Lake. “I was going to take you to dinner, but I think we’ve got that covered. You up for a stroll around The Gateway?”
She wanted to go back to the conversation about what Mercy had said about their family, but she didn’t want to spoil the mood. “I’m in.” The Gateway was an outdoor mall. All the shops besides the theater and the restaurants would be closed, and it would be chilly, but it was a pretty view regardless. This time of year, it was even better. Besides, she was supposed to do what she was told, and was curious to see what kind of training he had in mind.
Silence settled between them, and she frowned. She saw him at the wedding. At the reception desk in R&T. With his sister. He didn’t have any problem sliding through quips. She had to get him to drop his guard, to get the same. Did she have Mercy to thank, for him withdrawing? The sarcastic thought burrowed deep, and Susan couldn’t ignore it. Didn’t matter. Small talk was a must in her world.
“Are you a fan of classic movies?” she asked.
“As in, Star Wars? Pretty in Pink? Define classic.”
“You quoted Casablanca then night we met.”
“You remember that?” He sounded surprised.
“Should I not?” Far more memories had come back than she cared for. The feeling of helplessness when she realized she lost control of the situation. Her gratitude that he was there to step in. Thinking that she shouldn’t like the idea of needing to be saved, but enjoying the rescue anyway.
He paid the parking lot attendant and navigated them toward an empty spot. “Doesn’t usually happen with GHB or any of those drugs.”
They climbed from the car and made their way toward the shops.
“How do you know so much about it?” she asked.
“Personal experience.” Quickly, he added, “Taking, not giving. It’s a shame I don’t do my own camera work anymore. I’d put you in one of my movies.”
The sudden change in subject jarred her, but she switched gears. “I don’t remember asking.” She wanted to leave it at that, but fantasy surged into her thoughts. Baring it all for an audience. Stripping down, a piece of clothing at a time. Getting off to someone getting off on her. She shoved the images aside. If she kept hanging out with him, she wasn’t going to need a coat, regardless of how cold it got outside.
“You didn’t. But for as many people as seem to expect that’s how we know each other, the idea’s got potential.”
It had far more than she cared to admit. “I’d be terrified. I don’t have a public presence with my clothes on. That’s why we’re here. Remember?”
“Once I’m done with you, that all vanishes. You’ll blossom into a star.” Confidence leaked from his assurance.
“Really?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice. “You’ll not only cure me of my lacking presence, but also have me begging to take my clothes off for an audience?”
“Begging is exactly the word I would have used, but how’d you know?”
She rolled her eyes, but she was laughing. “I notice you didn’t answer my question.”
His step faltered for half a second. His smug expression never slipped. “What question?”
“Are you a fan of classic movies?”
“Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones… Sure. Love all that stuff.”
She dragged the titles through her memory, to find any connection at all. “Is that the one where the billionaire poses as a clerk in his own shoe store? Romantic comedy 1940’s style?”
“In Miss Jones, not and Miss Jones. Classic tale about a woman who spends her entire life obeying the rules, and then kills herself in a fit of frustration.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“Not done yet.” He held up a finger. “Despite all her good deeds, that one final act damns her to hell, where she’s subjected to all manner of debauchery and pleasure. Or—if you’d prefer—a movie about sex stuff.”
She was never going to live that down, but she wasn’t going to give him another opportunity to poke fun at her innocence. “Don’t know if I’d prefer it or not, though I’d rather not wait until I was dead to find out.”
“Probably smart. By the end of the movie, she’s addicted to the pleasure, and her eternal punishment after that is to never get off again. If you play your cards right, you get the bad-sex and not-getting-off parts out of the way early in adulthood, and figure out how to enjoy everything that comes after. Which includes you, over and over, if you’re doing it right.”
Her face heated to red-hot. Keeping him from uncovering her lack of experience was easier said than done. Especially if he was the one doing the saying.
Chapter Nine
Andrew learned early in life that
humor was one of the best ways to mask an awkward situation. Pulling up the jokes and distracting conversation when Susan hit too close to uncomfortable with questions about his past was instinct, but he recognized what he was doing as soon as the first words were out of his mouth. He was pretty sure little sister wasn’t as innocent as Mercy believed, but those moments when the pink dots formed on Susan’s cheeks short-circuited his off switch.
He slowed his step to watch her walk. It was a fantastic view. Her jeans hugged her ass, and she had a casual grace he’d rarely seen. The holiday lights sparkling like a million multi-colored stars surrounded her in an angelic-like glow.
“Serious question.” Her voice tugged him back to the conversation, and she paused to let him catch up.
“I can’t promise a serious answer with a lead-in like that, but I’ll try.”
“Why porn?” There was a brief hesitation when she said porn. It could have been a stutter or a catch in her throat.
He didn’t think either was the case. “Asking the question a different way than last time doesn’t mean you get a different answer.”
They reached the center of the plaza, where a high wall curved up to meet the second floor and created an amphitheater out of the bricks below. In the summer, it was an open fountain, with jets of water dancing toward the sky at random intervals. Now it was a crystal half-cave, glinting in Christmas lights and reflecting the full moon, and circled with benches. When she whirled to face him, her body flowed. She managed to turn the simplest step into a pirouette.
“I’m not the only one who’s asked,” she said. “You’ve got a stock reply. Easy answer is, I’m a guy; I like naked stuff.”
He frowned. He did have a party-version of the story on hand, specifically for questions like why porn.
“But I’m thinking you’re about twenty-eight, like Mercy,” Susan said.
“Yes. We’re the same age.”
“So you were my age when you kicked the whole thing off.”
“Which makes me sound ancient. It was only seven years ago.” Jesus. He felt like a dirty old man, lusting after someone so young. He’d hoped to hold out until forty or longer before that happened. That had to be it. He projected some sort of misplaced opportunity from his early twenties on her. Another reason to add to his Why Susan is Off Limits list, right under for Mercy.
She stuck out her tongue. “I can do the math. Thanks. My point is I haven’t finished school. I can’t get the job I want. My future is a huge blur. You’d already spent three years exploring the world, and you decided to build a billion-dollar empire because you like masturbation?”
“Yup. That’s how it happened. I woke up one day and said, I like naked people. So does everyone else. I’m going to be a billionaire.” He kept the teasing in his sarcasm.
“Exactly. You didn’t do anything like that. So, once again, why porn?”
“It was a bit like that, but I didn’t expect to make any money from it. Why do you want to know?”
She furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side, studying him. “Because it’s about you.” She made it sound as if the answer was obvious.
He had no idea what to do with the statement. “It’s not this great and grandiose tale of victory and smart business.” No. This wasn’t how the script went. “When I first got to Argentina, I lied my way into a bed or fifty, saying I was a talent scout from the U.S. It was how I found places to sleep.” No, no, no. His version of how it happened was far flashier.
“Did women actually buy that?” She didn’t look disgusted or bothered. The same open curiosity she had the night of the wedding shone on her face.
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t,” came out instead of Always. I was a smooth mother fucker. Damn it. He didn’t know where he was in the script anymore. The problem was, he’d delivered it so many times, he wasn’t even certain what the truth was.
He could get close, though. “It was sleazy. It was effective as fuck. It didn’t matter they didn’t buy it, they liked the way I pulled the line off without flinching. I had a whole spiel, including a photocopied release form, in case they made my list. One day, someone called me on it. I’d drunk too much tequila, promised her all sorts of fame and fortune, and she wanted to see the site she was on. I wanted back in her bed in the near future, so I tossed a few pages together, convinced Mercy to hide them behind a login, and threw some of my other pictures up there, to make it look authentic.”
“Let me guess. This doesn’t end with you learning your lesson on account of her knowing the site was fake.”
“Not even close. We played out the ruse too well. Mercy did a bang-up job with the search-engine optimization. Landed the right keywords without meaning to. My photos were incredible, and suddenly our shitty payment portal and handful of images were bringing in money. Not much. It kept us in bus tickets, and hotel rooms instead of hostels. But God damn, if I didn’t get more tail than I thought possible, when I actually was the guy who owned that one adult site.”
Susan fiddled with the button on the cuff of her jacket, her gaze focused on the bricks.
An unfamiliar sensation tugged inside Andrew. Was he embarrassing her? Why did he care? “Anyway. From there, we spun it into a venture where I could pay other people. Mercy worked her magic, getting the various sites out there. I designed the layouts and set the fetish guidelines. The rest fell like pretty much any other business plan.”
“But you love what you do.” She looked up, and her gaze bored into him, as if she could read below the surface.
“Naked people and fucking. We covered that.”
“It’s more than that. You enjoy what it represents. Being open. Letting people express themselves.”
He shook his head. “You’ve got a lot more faith in my intentions than they deserve. By the way… we’re not here for me. Don’t think I missed that you’ve turned the attention away from you.”
*
“Not on purpose.” Susan swallowed her frustration. Everything with Andrew was counter, block, and parry. Each time she caught a glimpse of what lay underneath, he covered it up with a new flash and distraction. Worse, she didn’t understand why she kept poking, prodding, and digging. She’d coerced him into doing her this favor, playing off some twisted attachment he had to her sister. What more did she need to know, as long as they both accomplished their goals?
“Now that we’re back on topic, I’d like to see you dance,” he said.
“You’ve seen me dance.” The notion twisted her gut in knots. What if he thought less of her, once he had a chance to see her for more than a few seconds? What if she screwed up? What if Dad was right, and this was a waste of time? Familiar doubts pressed in and threatened to suffocate her, but she clawed her way past them. She’d asked for his help with this; she wasn’t going to tell him no. “But if you meet me back at R&T early tomorrow, I’m happy to do an on-demand performance.”
“You misunderstand. I want to see it now.”
“Here?” Her question came out as a squeak. People passed by in groups of two or five or more, on their way to dinner or the movies. This time of year, with so many holiday shoppers lingering despite the closed stores, it was far from being a private show.
Andrew moved close enough that heat flowed between them, but he never made contact. “I dated a guy once. Super uptight. Formal. Complete control freak.” His voice rolled over her with a current of electricity. “But—Jesus—he could fuck.”
“Like on camera?” Stupid question. That was what most of his stories were about.
“Like on me. He wasn’t an actor. The man knew how to get me off.”
Andrew never flinched, and neither would she. The problem was she was now fantasizing about him with another man, and that was distracting. Picturing Andrew stripped down, some well-built guy kissing him, stroking him— “Is this another story that ends with you getting a blow job on a bench?” She was grateful she kept her question steady and neutral.
“No. Do you want to hea
r it or not?”
“Yes.”
“I took him out to dinner one night. I was enjoying the new feeling of having a free cash flow. It was a super classy place—or I thought so at the time. French version of Olive Garden, but with American food.”
She’d been to France and was pretty sure such a thing didn’t exist, but she didn’t dare interrupt and stop the tale.
“Or—you know—it was a little café on the corner somewhere, but they had tablecloths and candlelight, so it felt classy. We placed our orders, and chatted while we waited. He had a little wine. Wasn’t sitting quite as straight as normal. I dropped my hand to his leg and glided it up to his zipper. He pushed me away, but the right coaxing convinced him no one could see.”
She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. “And?”
He flicked his gaze across her face and gave a tiny shake of his head. “When I worked his cock free from his jeans, it was so hard I could cut glass with it and his spine went just as rigid. But the company was good, and his dick was hot against my palm, so I took my time stroking him.”
Details splashed with images through her thoughts, making her pulse race. Desire thrummed under her skin and throbbed between her legs. This was better than Tumblr.
“As the anticipation built, he relaxed.” If Andrew had any idea the effect he was having on her, it didn’t show. “When he tilted his head back, eyes half closed, I knew he was lost in the moment. He groaned when he came. Made a mess of my hand. Drew stares and more than a few whispers from the people around us. I guarantee, not all of them were as disgusted as they were acting.”
She didn’t know if she was more embarrassed for the unnamed boyfriend, or jealous. Temptation urged her to excuse herself for a few minutes, find the nearest bathroom, and slip her fingers between her legs. “What happened next?”
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