by Andi Bremner
I knew it had been stupid. I knew there was something wrong with it and yet I’d done it anyhow. I’d never been so careless before. I had mace in my car and in my purse. I didn’t talk to strangers and I didn’t just go with people I didn’t know. I stayed in my room whenever my mother had any of her “friends” over and in the morning—if they were still there—I discreetly slipped out the front door. I was more than aware of protective behaviors, having been exposed to some revolting propositions when I first hit puberty by my mother’s less than savory acquaintances. But I knew Tony which is what had made me trust him. I’d known Tony for years. He wasn’t a stranger. And I was also thinking about Gwen and Molly, Shawna and Olivia. This wasn’t just about me it was about them too. It was their dream as much, maybe more, than it was mine. Gwen’s in particular.
And yet, as stupid as I’d known it was, as bad as my gut was prodding me it was I hadn’t expected to be propositioned as I was. So straight up like that.
I felt disgusting and knew that the way I was dressed, the way I’d acted on stage had contributed to him thinking it was okay to talk to me that way, to suggest the things he did. I was the type of girl it wouldn’t shock.
Only it had.
“I need a shower,” I told Luke as soon as we stepped in his apartment.
He eyed me carefully, his eyes roaming over me as if assessing for damage. That broke my heart. He was awfully sweet. “It’s okay,” I told him, choking a little on my words, “he didn’t touch me.”
He nodded and then led me over to the bathroom. He paused on the threshold. “There are towels under the sink. I’ll get you some clothes.”
I nodded. So very sweet.
“If you need anything…” his voice trailed off.
“I just,” I swallowed, “I just need a shower that’s all.”
He left me, closing the door behind him with a soft click. Quickly undressing I climbed into the shower and turned it on hot, letting the steaming water wash every disgusting feeling off my skin. I wish it would clean deeper, really cleanse the ugliness out of my life.
I washed the heavy makeup off my face and scrubbed my body with some body exfoliating stuff he had in there. Briefly I wondered whose it was. Toby’s? Luke’s? Or did it belong to one of the girls they brought home? That thought made me cringe a little so I didn’t dwell on it. Instead I just washed.
It wasn’t just the filthy proposition I’d just had that I washed off it was the whole evening. From the moment I’d walked in and Gwen had told me it was up to me I’d felt uneasy. And then she’d cut my clothes. I groaned. Had Luke seen me like that? With my bra exposed to the crowd? I knew it was just a performance, I was acting, and I danced and was free with my body on stage during our gigs, but I didn’t normally expose myself like that. Show so much skin.
And then the crawl and the kiss. In the small cubicle of the shower, alone, just thinking about made my face burn hot. I knew he’d seen that. God, what must he think of me? After last night too. But then, he knew last night was my first time, he knew I wasn’t as slutty as I’d behaved that night. Didn’t he?
Turning off the shower I stepped out and wrapped one of the fluffy towels around me. After drying I realized he’d placed a pair of his boxer shorts and a t-shirt in the bathroom for me, leaving them folded up on top of the hamper. I blushed a little at that thought, realizing he’d come in whilst I showered. I’d been so caught up in my own thoughts though I hadn’t heard him.
When I emerged from the shower he was waiting for me, sitting on the sofa with two cups of coffee steaming on the coffee table in front of him.
His thoughtfulness made me smile.
“Feeling better?” he asked, as his eyes roamed over me from head to toe. I was. And the way he looked at me now made me feel even better in a different kind of way.
“Thank you,” I replied, taking the seat beside him on the sofa and pulling my legs up under me. He handed me a coffee and I sipped it. He’d made it with two sugars and strong. I liked it.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really,” I said, “I’d rather just forget. I feel very … stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Trin,” he told me, “You just have a dream. It’s not stupid to follow your dream.”
“Even if that dream leads you to being fondled by some man old enough to be your grandfather?”
He stiffened and made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat. “Relax,” I said quickly, “he didn’t fondle me. Although if you hadn’t walked in … Let’s just say he was having a hard time accepting that I wasn’t interested in his proposition.”
“I can’t believe Tony took you like that. I thought he watched out for your girls.”
“I thought so too,” I told him quietly, my own mind churning that over. Did Tony know what was going to happen? He’d liked me, I knew that, he’d looked out for us. That was what had made this seem so safe and okay, Tony being there, meeting him at his house. It was also what made this harder to comprehend.
“I saw the show,” Luke said after a few minutes. “I had a family thing tonight but afterwards I went to the show.”
“Oh.”
I already knew he’d seen the kiss. My insides hardened. I wished he hadn’t seen that. I wished that I’d never done it. Not to mention that stupid crawl.
“Why’d you do that, Trin?”
I shrugged. “It’s part of the show.”
“I didn’t like it.”
Suddenly I felt a bolt of annoyance through me, even though his words only reflected my own thoughts on the matter. Who was he to “not like it”? He didn’t have to like it. “It was just a kiss. For the performance.”
“But it won’t happen again.” It sounded like it should be a question but instead it came out like a command.
I put down my coffee. I was half annoyed and half warmed by his concern for me, his possessive comments. But at the same time I didn’t want to like him as much as I did, I didn’t want his concern to unravel me the way it did. He was from a different world where he wouldn’t have to work so hard to make his dreams come true. I was from a world where my dreams just didn’t come true, where you could try your damndest to make them a reality but they just stayed what they’d started out to be … dreams. But we—the girls and I—were close now. Sure, the guy tonight had been a creep and it hadn’t worked out as we’d liked, but we had a regular gig at Tony’s, we had the wedding in a few weeks. Our dreams weren’t as ridiculous as I’d once believe and I didn’t want anyone—Luke included—to start telling me otherwise.
Besides, what would someone like Luke want with a rock chic. My cheeks warmed as I thought about exactly what he wanted. I wanted it too, only I wanted a little more. Something Luke would never be able to give me. As much as it ached I knew I had to stop this thing—whatever it was—before it started. I was already too swept away by him and I knew—my mother had drilled it into me from the time I was four years old—that fairy tales didn’t come true. That Prince Charming was just a character in a book.
I didn’t want to ever end up like my mother. Putting her life on hold, desperate for any morsel of attention thrown her way, feeling like shit most of the time.
“Luke,” I began, “I like you I really do.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t. Don’t you dare start a sentence that way,” he warned, “not again.”
I ignored his warning and I plowed on, not looking him in the eye. “Where do you think this is going? I mean, we come from very different worlds. Last night was… Well, last night was good and I will be forever grateful to you for making it so great, but really…”
“Stop talking like last night is never going to happen again.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. He’d already seen where I lived and yet he was still here. But he didn’t know the half of it. He didn’t know about my mother, he didn’t know that I had nowhere else to go. He didn’t know and he couldn’t possibly understand. Our worlds were miles apar
t, even if we lived in the same little town.
Suddenly he leaned over and kissed me, startling me. It took me a few seconds to react, but when I did it was like molten lava was suddenly flowing through my veins. Heat scalded me from the inside out, burning all the way down to the pit in my belly. Suddenly all I wanted was Luke and the fairy tale, the sheer impossibility of it. I wanted it. I wanted my Pretty Woman Scenario, I wanted my Prince Charming.
Stop it, I told myself, willing myself to pull back from the kiss. Stop it before it goes too far and you get sunk deeper with him Trinity.
But I didn’t. That was how weak I was.
His mouth slanted across mine and I opened for him, climbing onto his lap when he pulled me and threading my hands through his hair, anchoring him to me. Suddenly I felt afraid to let him go and tonight, after what had happened with Tony’s mate, I needed him, a thought which terrified me. I had never needed anyone, not for years, had never looked to anyone else for emotional comfort but Luke did something to me and it made me need him.
I wanted him to make me feel better about myself. Thoughts of pulling back from him, of pushing him away fluttered out of my head. Right in this moment all I wanted was him.
Leaning back I looked down at him, wondering if he would do for me what I needed. My behavior tonight, what I’d done had made me feel cheap and dirty. Luke, and the way he was so nice to me, the way he looked at me and touched me, made me feel worthy. When I was with him I forgot. It just felt right. Like I deserved him. That he deserved me.
“My room,” he ground out before he stood up, picking me up with him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him carry me into the bedroom that was his, depositing me on the bed. I crawled back on the pillows, lying back and waiting for him. He began to follow suit but I stopped him.
“Take your shirt off,” I murmured, the heat burning up in my chest.
He paused a moment before he grinned, pulling the shirt off over his head and tossing it somewhere else. “Now yours.”
I sat up and followed suit before I thought more on it and decided to get rid of the boxer shorts too. I shimmied out of them, all the while conscious of his eyes watching my every move, tracing over my body as I did.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he lay alongside me, his body half covering me. Then he kissed me again, his mouth moving urgently and hungrily, his lips pressing hard on mine as if trying to cement me to him. His hands were everywhere, scalding me as they moved with desperation over my body. Down over my breasts, scraping over my hips to rest on my buttocks. He jerked me towards him and I lifted a leg, draping it over his hip. “You are so unbelievable.”
I smiled against his mouth as he dipped his head to kiss the hollow at the base of my throat. I shivered and he kissed lower, pulling a nipple into his mouth and biting down on it gently before sucking it into his mouth. Delicious sensations ran straight to my core and I arched against him, holding onto him as I felt the heat build.
One hand moved down between my legs and we groaned in unison as he slid over my center. “Trin,” he muttered, “you are so hot and wet. I can’t tell you what it does to me knowing that you are like that for me.”
“I can’t tell you what it does to hear you say stuff like that,” I told him honestly. His words were undoing me and making me feel more wonton and sexier with each syllable.
He looked down on me through heavy, hooded eyes. His pupils were dilated and he was breathing heavy. “You like that? You like hearing me talk a little dirty?”
I flushed, feeling the heat rush up my throat. Embarrassed, I didn’t want to answer him and instead lifted my head to get him to kiss me again. I squirmed against his hand, hoping he would continue his ministrations there too.
“How can I talk to you if you are kissing me,” he murmured between kisses, “and I want to talk to you. I want to turn you on even more. Fuck, I can feel the warmth flooding your pussy.”
I groaned. Loudly. As I bucked against him. His fingers were working deliciously between my legs but it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I needed more.
“Please…” I begged him, his lips moving ever so softly over mine, pulling my bottom lip into his and nibbling it.
“Please what, Trin?” he asked, teasing me, running tiny kisses down my throat, “tell me what you want. I bet you like talking dirty as much as you like hearing it.”
I trembled. His fingers were teasing, moving over the parts I wanted him to touch, skimming the edges of where I wanted him to sink.
“Tell me, Trin, I fucking it love it too,” his voice was thick, “tell me what you want.”
“I want you to touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
He was going to make me do this, I knew it. I trembled, arching against him. I lifted my hips to get him to give me what I needed but he only chuckled. “Give it up, babe. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. But I wanna hear you say it.”
I groaned. “I want to you to sink your fingers into my pussy. I want you to stroke me and then I want you to fuck me.”
“Fuck, babe,” he groaned in my ear before he obliged, sinking his fingers into me as his thumb flicked over my bud. I cried out, clutching at him more as the waves began to build.
Chapter Sixteen
Luke
I was dying. Literally dying and going straight to heaven. Every time I talked a little dirty or Trinity talked a little dirty I felt her warmth spread on my hands. She was so fucking turned on I didn’t think I’d be able to last. I was going to come before she did and before I even got my cock anywhere near her.
“Come for me, baby,” I whispered in her ear, “I can feel you are so close and I love watching you come.”
She was whimpering now, clutching at me, her eyes shut as she squirmed against my hand.
“God your pussy looks so good,” I told her, “it’s beautiful. I can’t wait to get inside you. Deep inside you like this.”
I wiggled my fingers a little more and felt her lose it, crying out as the waves of her orgasm hit and fuck me, if she didn’t cry my name as she came. I’d never seen or heard anything more beautiful in my whole life and wondered if anything would ever compare to that moment again.
Quickly, with her still coming down off her high I stripped out of my jeans and boxers and pulled a condom on. Then I held myself on top of her, supported on my arms as I looked down at her.
“Okay?” I asked. She hadn’t said no, but I didn’t want to assume…
She was breathing heavy, her breasts rising and falling as she looked up at me through cloudy eyes. She smiled as she held my gaze before she raised her legs and I plummeted myself deep into her.
****
Yelling woke me a little later. Loud, swearing, angry yelling and I felt as if I’d been yanked rudely from a blissful sleep. Which I guess I had. Rubbing my hands over my face, I sat up, my mind churning to make sense of what was going on.
Slowly the events of the night before seeped back into my mind. That god awful dinner with mine and Melissa’s family. Her mother. My mother. Melissa. All three of them had decided to ignore the fact that were no longer a couple and instead assume that we were only minutes away from announcing our engagement. If it hadn’t of been for Brooke I don’t know how I would’ve made it through dinner without being horribly rude to both Melissa and her parents. Brooke talked about other things, asked me questions about Trinity and Moonstone and generally reminded me that I didn’t have to stick there with them all night. By the time dessert rolled around I’d pretty much checked out of there.
And then I’d raced across town to The Silver Den only to find Trinity up on stage in the raunchiest performance I’d seen from anyone before. She’d have given the girls at Xanadu, the local strip club, a run for their money I was sure. Watching her up on stage, her breasts hanging out made my skin crawl and I’d had to resist the urge to yank her off there and cover her with my shirt. But my final undoing had been that crawl and kiss with a member of the audienc
e. I barely recognized the sweet girl who’d given up her virginity the night before from the one on stage.
Trinity.
The meeting with Tony’s mate. Then afterwards. Here. In my shower. In my bed. Again in my bed.
The yelling was continuing as I spent too long daydreaming and only then did I realize she wasn’t here. At some point she’d left me, the covers pushed back, the pillow still creased from where she’d rested.
And the yelling was continuing.
Oh. Fuck. Too late I recognized that voice.
Hauling my ass out of bed I pulled some boxers on before I raced out to the living area to find Melissa in a full on rant. I cursed myself, hating that I’d taken so long to realize what was going on, who was yelling and who she was yelling out. Toby emerged from the bedroom next to mine at the same time I did.
“What the fu—?” he muttered, looking even more asleep than me. He’d probably only been home a few hours.
Bright sunlight streamed through the living room window. Melissa was there and she was yelling at Trinity who was dressed in the boxer shorts and t-shirt I’d given her the night before. She must have gotten up to go to the bathroom when Melissa came in as she was standing just outside the bathroom door, her face pale, her bottom lip trembling under the verbal assault Melissa had been laying on her.
She’d stopped though, as soon as I emerged.
“Melissa,” I snapped, running a hand through my hair, “what the hell are you doing here?”
She flicked her eyes over to me. They sparked with her anger and her mouth was curled down in that horrible snobby, displeased look she sometimes got. She stood tall though, ramrod straight as she jutted a manicured finger my way. “What the hell is this?” she snarled, “you go straight from me to her?”