She barely reached the level of my chin. Every part of her was tiny (except for the aforementioned tits). And the sparkling amber eyes were made even larger by the caramel-colored bangs dragging in her eyelashes.
She set her bag on the desk and pulled out a gigantic pair of padded headphones. She dropped them around her neck, tucked the plug into her front pocket, and said, “You promised coffee. My chipper is wearing off fast this morning.”
“So I did. Are you ready to see the booth?”
“I’ve been ready all week. I had to drive here from Kansas City and it took a while.”
I said, “That’s just a one-day drive. Two if you take it slow.”
Jensen laughed. “It’s four when you have a car-sick dachshund. So I didn’t get here until yesterday.”
I added likes dogs to the shiny new Jensen MacKenzie catalog in my head. She officially had a second redeeming quality. Two guesses on the first one on the list…
“Is she okay now?”
“He is fine. Settling in and hopefully not chewing all the moving boxes I didn’t get to unpack yet.” I heard her mumble, Which would be most of them.
As the coffeemaker rumbled, Jensen nosed around the studio, raised the seat on her chair, dragged her microphone as low as it would go, then for some reason went trotting out into the hall.
She came back brandishing an AC/DC coffee mug.
We had five minutes to air, so as she poured her coffee and put in more sugar than I’ve ever seen a person consume in one sitting, I asked her what she felt comfortable talking about, and how she wanted me to introduce her.
“I generally go by Mac on the air, but Tack and Mac sounds like a greasy blueplate special, so I’ll use Jensen. Let them wonder if it’s my first or last name.”
“How about I introduce you, you tell a bit about yourself, then roll right into the readable promos?”
“Sounds great. Are you following with music or ads, so I know how to wrap?”
I glanced at the promo copy. “Music. Three songs, then you’ll do your first traffic report.”
Jensen chewed her bottom lip. Which was erotic as hell.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head and stopped turning her lip into breakfast. “Nothing some strong coffee won’t fix.”
She took a sip from her mug and groaned.
My stiffy was instantaneous.
I choked on my own mouthful and rolled my stool as far forward as possible to hide my lap. This was not good.
She cocked her head to one side. “You okay?”
I nodded and mimed the drink going down the wrong pipe.
“Now there’s an idea. I’ll bet the caffeine’ll hit quicker if I breathe it...” She drank and mmm’d again and everything rushed south. I could’ve driven railroad spikes with the steel in my pants after that one.
This would be a very long four hours if I didn’t get that mug out of her hands.
“Good morning, Las Vegas! And what a fantastic Monday morning it is. I’m sure you remember last week when I was all alone in here—well, it was for a good reason. Quite a beautiful reason, actually. Today, we welcome Jensen to your mornings with KLVR/Rock 108.” She had already turned on her mic and I nodded at her to speak.
“Thanks, Tack. My name is Jensen, and I’m a very recent transplant from Kansas City. I’d always wanted to take a Las Vegas vacation, but could never quite swing it. So instead, I up and moved here. Vegas is amazing, and I’m thrilled that now I’m part of it.” She flashed me a smile before continuing.
Total honesty here—I have no idea what else she said. Because holy shit, her on-air voice was pure porn star. Smooth with a touch of throaty on the vowels… in my mind, she already had her knees crossed behind my head and those ragged edges were from screaming for God.
Jensen was waving at me—what the hell? Oh, the ad sheets she was supposed to read. I mouthed Sorry as I slid them across the counter.
I could hear the ratings going up already. Whoever hired her was a genius. And was going to die, if I made it through our timeslot without my scrotum exploding.
She was good. And definitely not new to co-hosting. As she wrapped up her read, she counted down with the fingers of one hand so that I was ready with a song block when she got to zero.
“Are you always this spacey?” She chuckled and hopped down from her stool to top off her coffee.
“It’s never happened before. Sorry. You have a beautiful voice.” Me, rattled? Not a chance.
It was just hard to concentrate with my pulse pounding a bossa nova in my dick.
“So I’m your first? Nice.” She winked at me over the top of her mug and took a long swallow. With another moan. Of course.
“Should I give you a little private time with your coffee? I’ve never seen anyone go this nuts over Bed & Breakfast Blend.”
She chuckled again, and I didn’t think I could honestly get any stiffer.
Wrong.
Jesus.
“My throat was a little sore this morning. Too much screaming last night, I think.”
The top just blew off my dick.
I must have looked strange. Or like I was being strangled, because she continued. “At the movers. They didn’t show up until nearly sunset. Then they tried to demand another five hundred bucks because nobody told them that my condo has two stories and apparently, taking things up a flight of stairs is a premium service. They broke the leg on my sofa… do you want to hear all this?”
Not really. But her cheeks, which had seemed a little too pale a moment ago, had gone pink, and her eyes were doing a fascinating flashing-thing. My testosterone-soaked brain had transferred this face to underneath me, attached to her naked body. My dick throbbed on and I had to practically drape myself over the counter to hide what was doing behind my zipper.
And so help me, if she made another throaty noise over that java, I’m breaking the carafe.
And so the morning went on. I swear, everyone in the building dropped in to say hello. Various jocks from our sister stations invited themselves on-air, turning on the guest mic and basically taking over my show. The advertisements weren’t played even close to on time, music was forgotten, and I think we only did one more update on driving conditions.
I was invisible in my own booth.
I could understand wanting to meet the new morning girl. And she was charming and cute and had me grinding my teeth. But I barely got a wave or a Hi, Tack. You’d think the crowds would have deflated my erection. But they asked her questions and she kept talking and her voice was like a cockring that came right in through my ears.
And then we played a commercial for Viagra. How appropriate that I got to hear a warning about erections lasting for four hours. Sweet Christ, I could be doing permanent damage here. Was it ten o’clock yet?
***
I made it home in record time, intending to do something about the undying boner. I wasn’t sure what, though. Beating off because of my new co-host was kind of creepy. Besides, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her yet—newsflash: a man doesn’t have to like you in order to want to fuck you. He can actually hate your guts. Thank God that by the time I got home, my beleaguered dick had finally deflated.
Now, I’ve had the occasional blue balls before in my younger days, but this—this was a sledgehammer to the ‘nads. Swung by Atlas himself.
Walking was painful. Bending down to greet Lita, and straightening up after, were complete agony. Since this was my normal bedtime anyway, I grabbed a bag of frozen peas, slapped it on my groin when I (literally) crawled between the sheets, and grabbed the remote. There was no way I’d be sleeping any time soon.
Surprise, surprise. I woke up six hours later with a mushy Birds Eye bag under my left butt cheek.
Butt-peas? Never gonna eat them. Ever. I tossed the bag into the trash.
When I was trying to cut out of the station this morning at two after ten, Jensen cornered me and invited me to her unpacking party. Seems most of t
he station was going to be there.
Alright, she didn’t really corner me, I held the door open for her to leave the booth and she turned around while I was still in the doorway. Still, I had nowhere to run. And my stupid mouth was saying something about knowing how to fix her broken couch. I should have punched my own teeth out.
So now I had her address and cell number in my iPhone. I could feel the thing wanting to reject her data. I was seriously expecting Siri to start some jealous screeching. I checked to see if her info was still there, on the off chance that—nope. Second J on the list.
So now I had no viable reason to not go.
Except that I really didn’t want to.
I was feeling better, and wanted to keep it up. So to speak.
Maybe by the time I was out of the shower, she wouldn’t need me.
While I washed the stink of smashed peas and plastic off my ass, I thought up a string of possible excuses to get out of helping her.
And rejected every one of them.
None of them sounded plausible enough. I may be a serial sexer, but I never outright lie to women. Leave out selected bits and details? Sure. Filter what I say and leave them to assume? Absolutely. But I don’t say things that are blatantly untrue. And since I had to see Jensen the next morning, and the one after that etcetera, anything I could come up with would show itself to be total fabrication.
After screwing around with ideas for nearly an hour, I decided to just call to say I wasn’t feeling one-hundred-percent—truth—and that I’d see her in the morning.
It took her three rings to answer. I was just starting to think she wouldn’t and was mentally composing my message when her breathless, “Hello?” killed that hope.
Damn.
How the conversation went from I can’t make it to What do you like on your pizza? is beyond me.
“This is fixable.” I had the sofa leg in my hand, after much wrenching and creative swearing to get it to unscrew.
Jensen was digging through boxes to find plates for the pizza. When she looked up, she did that flashy-thing with her eyes again. Thank God the region south of my belt buckle was too worn out to respond. “Hey! You got it off!”
Nope. Not touching that one. But I couldn’t help the smile.
“They bent the metal threaded part. I’m pretty sure I can bend it back, but holding it with pliers is going to chew up the wood.”
She walked over holding a stack of plates wrapped in a dish towel. I swear her hips were a little more swively than they were earlier. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mess with the wood any more than you have to.” She smirked and winked, but my quick flash of skeevy kept me from responding in kind.
Had she been spying on me in the shower? Seriously. I was worried that I’d broken something this morning, so, to check, I’d popped off a quick one before the hot water ran out.
Oh, but she was looking at the couch leg and not at my crotch.
“Can I borrow that towel?” I held out my hand. Jensen looked at me like I’d just said the whole shower thing out loud. I was pretty sure I hadn’t.
“What for?”
“To wrap the leg in so the pliers don’t gouge it as much.”
“You’re a genius.”
I didn’t let on that using a towel was standard guy-stuff. Let her think I was brilliant for the time being. I can handle it.
When I had the leg as straight as possible, the plan was for me to screw it back in while she held the back of the couch. The corner of the sofa I was reaching for zoomed right past my hand.
“Jensen! What are you doing?”
She was unscrewing a back sofa leg. “Call me Jen. Anyone who has wrapped one of my legs in a towel has earned the right not to be formal.” She brandished the leg she’d removed. “Trade ya.”
Christ. She was flirting with me.
I may not have many rules, but the most cardinal one of all was Thou shalt not have sex with a co-worker. And although I’d bent that one once (she’d given her two-week notice, so I got off on a technicality), I would never, not ever, violate it when the co-worker in question was also my co-host.
“Okay, Jen, what are we doing here?” Let her interpret that any way she pleased.
“We are putting the prettier leg in front and hiding the dinged-up one against the wall.”
Score one for me. I really hadn’t wanted to set her straight, gently or otherwise.
While I put the furniture back together, Jen put pizza on the plates. I watched her bring them over and yup—that ass had a definite sashay that wasn’t there this morning. I held out my hand for the plate with two slices.
“Nuh-uh. This one’s mine. If you want a second piece, your legs work just fine to get it yourself.”
“Wow.”
“What?” At least that’s what I think she said. It was kind of muffled around her mouthful of cheese.
“You. Eating like a real person. Most women do the whole dainty I-live-on-air thing around guys and then totally pig out in private.” I took a bite of my own slice.
“When I’m hungry, I eat. I’m blessed with a fast metabolism.” She took a swig of soda. “And it’s easier not to pretend to be I’m somebody I’m not. Especially with you. Trust me, there will be some mornings when you’ll just have to appreciate that I’m marginally presentable and don’t smell.”
“I doubt that. In case nobody told you, you’re gorgeous.”
Her pizza paused halfway to her mouth. “I do recall someone mentioning it this morning. Thank you.” The slice went back down to the plate and her eyes flashed down to study the floor. “But you should know now, I have alarm clock issues. When we unpack my bedroom, you’ll see what I mean.”
“How, exactly, does one have issues with an alarm clock?”
She sighed. “They don’t wake me up. I have to use three of them, set about a minute apart, scattered around my room. And even then, sometimes I oversleep. So this–” she looked up again, drawing a circle in the air around her face–“may not show up pretty all that often.”
“That could be frightening.”
Jen smacked my shoulder. And whattayaknow, my dick wasn’t so tired after all. I shifted, trying to squish him. This was not the time for Tack Jr. to be investigating his surroundings. Nor to be thinking of her bedroom.
A sudden, unrelated thought popped into my head. “Where’s your dog? I’ve been here almost an hour and haven’t seen him.”
“Angus? I closed him in my room upstairs when everybody else from the station were leaving. He kept trying to scoot outside between their feet. Then you got here as I was heading upstairs to let him out. Poor guy. I forgot all about him.” She set her plate down on the cushion and started up the stairs.
I nearly choked on my pizza. “You named a wiener dog Angus?”
“You’ll see when you meet him,” she yelled from somewhere above my head.
The barking started on the staircase. He sounded bigger and burlier than any dachshund I’d ever known. I saw a streak, stretched out like Superman, fly from the end of the stairway, and he was still barking his damn head off. The blur screeched to a stop near my feet, tail wagging and growling hollowly like he wasn’t sure he meant it.
He was a sleek reddish-brown, short and elegant and looking like he belonged on one of those calendars they sell in PetSmart. His chest didn’t look big enough for all that racket.
“Are you hiding another dog up there?” I glanced over at the foot of the stairs. Big mistake. Ten pounds of noisy little German landed on the couch next to me and stole the last few inches of my pizza.
He bounced back down to the floor and had the cheese in his mouth before I could even react.
Jensen yelled his name and a tug-of-war with my now-denuded pizza ensued.
I watched for a moment, and neither one seemed to be winning.
“Angus.” I didn’t yell, but he could tell I meant business. He dropped the crust and flattened himself to the floor. It was almost hard to tell. He only dropped abou
t an inch.
“Wow. I need to learn that trick.” She picked up the naked crust and tossed it into a trash bag. Angus continued to make like a rug.
“He’s awfully ballsy for being so small.” I patted the front of the couch and Angus army-crawled over, giving my Nikes a surreptitious sniff before going back to being prostrate.
“He always has been. Barks at thunder like he’s telling the sky to shut up. Short-guy syndrome.”
I never did get to see what Jen’s bedroom looked like. I was strictly a first-floor guy because finding her coffee maker was more important than anything. “I don’t need the clocks tonight. I have you to wake me up,” she said.
I nearly dropped the stack of bowls I’d just finished unwrapping.
She swatted my arm. Again. Jensen MacKenzie is a very smacky girl. “Good lord, not like that. I meant it like please, Tack, call and wake me up at four-thirty.”
Great. I haven’t even known her for a whole day and she’d managed to worm her way into speed-dial.
Two boxes labeled Kitchen later and we were no closer to finding Mr. Coffee. “I can’t believe you didn’t write coffee pot on the box.”
Jensen dropped another box onto the granite-topped island. “I thought I’d remember. It was a smaller box.”
“They’re all smaller boxes, Jen.”
She sighed and cut the tape on the newest box.
Then let out a little whoop.
“Caffeine machine?”
She nodded as she reached in and crumpled newspaper hit the floor. I sent up a prayer of thanks. This whole scene was feeling far too domestic and I was desperate to escape.
“Hey, Tack?” she asked, ever so sweetly.
Uh-oh. “Yeah?”
“I hate to ask,” she said.
“But you will,” I finished.
“Well… I don’t have any coffee. If it’s not too much trouble–”
And that was how I found myself staring at the selection of java at Vons, kicking myself for not asking what she wanted.
I settled for a bag of the stuff she’d nearly had an orgasm over this morning (holy hell, the flashbacks. Down, boy). And a few aisles over, grabbed a bag of sugar. Inexplicably, I was reaching for a quart of half-n-half without even knowing how I got to the dairy section.
Waking Up in Vegas Page 3