by Ash Harlow
“What a horrible story. You poor thing, begging for attention like that.”
“There’s a lesson there.”
“It won’t work,” I told him.
“So you’ve no objection to me wandering around naked?”
“If it gets the book finished, no objection at all.” Brave words and pink cheeks. Of course, my mind was stuck with a reel of Stone, naked, on high rotation.
“You’re imagining me naked.” His look was one of immense satisfaction.
“It’s not all about you, Stone.” My words made me sound like someone who cared, and I regretted them. He appeared lost for a moment, and I felt guilty because by the sounds of things, it was never about him when it should have been—when he was a child. I couldn’t fix him. I didn’t know him, and I didn’t know how. All I could do was stop myself from falling into the same patterns of behavior I used with my mother. I had to protect myself.
He rose from the table, and I noticed two women seated along the terrace from us stop talking and watch his progression through the diner to the restrooms. One of them said something, flicking her hand, as though she’d just burned herself. The other nodded in agreement, and they both burst into laughter. For a moment, they looked me over, and I could see the judgment in their faces. I was dismissed with a simple glance. No competition.
Stone returned, having paid the check inside.
“I have to work,” he said, taking my jacket from the back of my chair and helping me into it. At least he’d learned some manners in the years between thirteen and now.
Back on the street, he fixed my helmet, climbed onto the bike, and kicked it to life. I waited for his nod before hoisting my leg over, and I settled behind him. I knew the drill now, and tapped him on the shoulder to let him know I was ready. For the benefit of the two women at the restaurant, I took hold of Stone’s waist, and we were away.
We took a more direct route home. No stopping this time to stretch our legs. I could feel Stone’s distance, and I hoped he was preoccupied with the concentration it must take to control the beast of a bike, rather than just being in a difficult mood.
Not long into the ride, I sensed a change in him. I scarcely knew him, but still, I could feel it. A kind of peace that came with the rhythm of the road, the lowering into the corners, and the acceleration out. It was exhilarating, but it felt safe. I allowed myself to relax and enjoy the flex and dip of Stone’s body because this was the perfect excuse to press myself against him and follow what he did. When I found myself laying my cheek across his shoulder, I pulled back.
Stone noticed, taking his hand to his waist and covering mine, giving it a squeeze.
I tensed. This was not going to happen. I wasn’t going to blow my future with this ridiculous self-seduction that was going on in my head. I couldn’t even blame Stone for that. He hadn’t done a thing wrong. No wonder those fans of his on social media adored him. The man was addictive for all the wrong reasons.
Thankfully, the spell completely shattered once we were back at the house. Stone followed me in the door, muttering about writing as he disappeared to the tower. I went to my office. If I tucked my nose to my shoulder, I could still smell the leather of his jacket that I’d worn. But not him. He would never have fit into it, and I wondered how many other women had been inside that jacket, pressed to Stone on the back of his bike.
I downloaded the photos I’d taken to my laptop and started sorting through ones that I could post to his social media. Scrolling through them, I was reminded why Stone had been so in demand as a model. Not a single bad photo. The guy was seductive, sexy, funny, cute, and pensive. He did every look effortlessly. I couldn’t wait to show Carrie when I returned home on the weekend, although she’d already have seen some of them by then. I noticed she’d liked Stone’s Facebook page.
I posted a This-or-That pair of images. ‘This’ was one of Stone sitting against the tree, legs bent, forearms resting on his knees, a direct, challenging stare at the camera. ‘That’ was an image of Stone astride his bike, jacket open, sunglasses, dirty blond hair mussed up from his helmet, but looking like a stylist had created the perfect just-out-of-bed look. The smile on his face was even dirtier.
Twenty minutes later, the post had been shared more than eighty times and the comments were coming filthy and fast. Some of these fans were shameless. I stopped counting how many offers there were to be the bike, or how many suggested you can ride me. In an early count, ‘that’ photo was winning by a slim margin.
I was about to delete the crude comments before I took a moment to assess the audience and the usual responses on the page. It looked par for the course, so I decided to watch it for a while and make sure nothing untoward happened.
Was I expected to ‘Like’ and respond to those messages?
There were a bunch of emails in my inbox from the FaithLit group, who had a new release coming up. I flicked over to their page and scheduled a few inspirational quotes I had on standby. Sunrises, fields of flowers, messages of hope and redemption. Sweet love. I went back to Stone’s page and watched the comments run. Each fan seemed intent on outdoing the previous one.
SamanthaOh-Oh-Oh: THAT. You can ram your throbbing engine between my legs any day.
Really? SamanthaOh-Oh-Oh appeared to have a husband, two children, and a highly-sexed imagination.
My phone rang. Caller ID: Mother.
I could ignore it. Say I was working, but it was possible she’d discovered I wasn’t in NYC this week, and the longer I avoided her when she was looking for me, the more drama I was forced to deal with.
I picked up the phone and accepted the call, my stomach twisting into a knot of conditioned response.
“Mom, hi.”
“Katrina. I haven’t heard from you in a week. Not that that’s a surprise.”
“I haven’t heard from you either, Mom.”
She made a noise of exasperation. “Are you still with the agency? FaithLit says you haven’t responded to their messages.”
“Yes, I’m still with the agency. I’m working right now.”
“I called there, and they said you’d finished.”
We were like the defense lawyer and the hostile witness. She never asked a question she didn’t already have the answer to. And I didn’t give an answer before considering every angle and hoping I called my response right. All my life, I’d carried a spade, digging myself into holes while trying to figure out the appropriate reply that would make her happy. My successes were rare and unacknowledged. I wish I could get it into my head that nothing worked. Nothing made her happy with me.
“The agency has given me an assignment as PA to an author they manage. I’m working offsite.”
“Is that so. And without the work you’ve done for FaithLit, you’d never have gotten that job in the first place. Yet, Katrina, all you do is complain about the opportunity I created for you. I know there are plenty of other girls at church better qualified than you who would love the opportunity to run FaithLit’s online properties. I really don’t understand why you have to be so ungrateful. I didn’t raise you to be this way.”
The depth of her perceived hurt could always be measured by the frequency of the personal pronouns in her rant. I, I, I. Me, me, me. It was all about Mom. To prove her wrong, I’d tried giving up the gig to the others at church supposedly waiting in line for the opportunity, but there were no takers. Probably because the job only came with the reward of knowing you were doing His work, rather than anything financial.
“I’m not ungrateful, but I am busy. I really shouldn’t be taking personal calls during work time.”
“It’s a sorry day when a daughter no longer has time for her mother. Anyway, I’m calling you about work. Jean is worried that she hasn’t heard from you about her new book. I had to defend you, Katrina, rather than agree that it was quite typical of you to prioritize your personal life over the things that really matter in this world.”
Of course, my job, the thing I was paid to d
o, fell under the banner of ‘personal life’ because it didn’t involve Mom. I let her rant while I scrolled through the comments on Stone’s This-or-That picture.
LindaSucks: THAT...My lips, your tailpipe. PM me.
In the background, my mother continued undeterred. “...Clarissa will be home from college in two weeks. There will be a family lunch on Sunday the seventeenth. Make sure you’re there. Clarissa is doing so well. Even though she’s busy, she always makes time to phone . . .”
StoneMe: THIS: Trunk hunk mmmmm
“Katrina? Are you there?”
“Yes, Mom. I’m listening.”
WetForU: THIS. Nice wood.
I giggled.
SirStoneSub: THIS & THAT—I’ll chose the one that will make Sir happy. Or maybe not. Then I’ll be punished *squeeee*
Holy hell. I’d drawn the mega fans out of the woodwork. I minimized the page, scared that Mom would somehow know what I was doing.
“Pay attention, Katrina. Who is this author you’re working for?”
Uh-oh. Did she know already? Could I lie? “It’s just someone you’ve probably never heard of.”
“You’re avoiding my question. Are you hiding something?”
She would pick and prod until I told her. “He’s a romance author.”
“He. Men are writing romance now? This is typical of you, Katrina, to align yourself with something off the wall. I hope he doesn’t write that filth that’s becoming so popular these days after that English woman wrote those dreadful stories with blindfolds and whips that everyone talked about. Tell me his name.”
“It’s not important, Mom. His books are tame. You don’t have to know who he is.”
Another grunt of irritation came down the phone at me. “I will have to inform the FaithLit group. I can’t have you working with someone who could possibly fall in opposition to their values.”
Sure, I complained about FaithLit, but I didn’t actually want to lose that work. Those books were successful within their niche, and if I didn’t land a job with CJM, my backup plan was to start my own business offering marketing and promotion for authors. I needed a client list.
“I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement—”
“Nonsense. I’m your mother.”
If only she acted like one. “And I’m bound by the NDA. Legally, I can’t disclose details.”
“You should know better than to try and hide things from me.”
She was right. I should have known better, but I felt safe behind the agreement I’d signed. Not even my mother was above the law.
I recognized the summing up that signaled we were approaching the end of the call. It was the part where Mom drove home the points that would leave me feeling wrung out and gasping for breath. In order, I got the reminder about how wonderful my sister was, the implied threat of trouble if I missed lunch in three weeks’ time, and the warning about keeping secrets about the man I was working for.
Jab, jab, uppercut.
I dropped the phone and stared out the window. I was twenty-two, and I still hadn’t pulled myself out of the insidious grip Mom had on my self-worth. Whenever something went well for me, she either took credit for it or destroyed it. My dismay turned to anger. I felt like calling her back and telling her Stone’s name. I wanted to send her his books and tell her to stretch her mind past the narrow view she had of the world.
But it would be wrong to use Stone as my weapon to end this battle.
8
Stone
I caught the last part of Katrina’s phone call with her mother. Should I have walked away and given her some privacy? Probably. If I were decent, I would have done that. On the other hand, the call was on company time, as they say. In a sense, while Katrina was here, I owned her. I paid her to dedicate a certain amount of hours to me each day, and during that time, I could do whatever I wished with her so long as my actions were lawful.
She was becoming my study, my muse, and proving useful in crafting a different sort of character to the ones I usually put in my books. The time had come for Steele, my fictional manwhore, to find the motivation to change from his slutty habits and settle down. Poor bastard. I pitied him and wondered if that was the reason I was dragging my feet over getting down and writing the story.
Katrina was turning out to be an intriguing CJM plant, but Sarah hadn’t thought this through. There wasn’t a lot to keep Katrina occupied because I wasn’t going to have her running to the shops for me or doing my housework.
Her back was to me, and I waited a moment, studying her as she gazed out the window. Her shoulders spoke of despair, a half-deflated, forgotten football. She’d unraveled her braid and made some sort of knot on top of her head, held in place with a couple of pencils. I was fascinated that something so simple inspired so many ideas, all of which involved copious bodily fluids and no clothes. The way she’d clung to me on the motorcycle made me hard, as did the way she chewed her food, blushed, laughed, and tried to hide her indignity.
Little inspired me these days since Lily. The idea of a hookup felt hollow. Flirting with the fans was often a marketing chore rather than the fun it used to be. Teasing Katrina was a worthy distraction.
“Everything okay here, Poppins?”
I’d startled her, and she quickly flicked the browser window on her laptop to show she was working on my Facebook page.
“All good. I’m just working on your social media.”
“Mothers are such an emotional suck, aren’t they?”
She turned and looked at me. Everything there was honest, the hurt in her eyes, the confusion, all the shit I was well acquainted with. I used to see it in the mirror when I was a child. Fuck that. For some reason, it pissed me off that Katrina’s mother still had some kind of hold on her.
“They are. Sorry about the personal stuff during work time. It won’t happen again.”
I waved it off. My guess was that it would happen again, and I didn’t need to add to Katrina’s guilt load. “We’re not on a strict timetable here. If you need to deal with family stuff, roll with it.”
“She’s nosy. Likes to involve herself in every detail of my life.”
“So that she can control it.”
There again on her face, the truth. We weren’t about to become therapy buddies, and my mother had never tried to control my life. She could barely control her own. Having a child had been so overwhelming, she’d had to put me aside so that she could exist. Don’t crowd me, Stone. I need to breathe.
Katrina grimaced. “Your fans are rabid.”
“And competitive. What are they up to?”
She pushed her laptop across the desk. I couldn’t see anything beyond the regular veiled offers of sex, which typically escalated to blatant propositions. I scrolled through. The usual suspects were there, along with some new ones.
“Nice work, Poppins. Some of them are actually discussing the books.”
“Most of them are discussing your body parts, one piece of anatomy in particular.”
“Those chicks are nuts.”
“Have you ever...you know...taken them up on their offers?”
“What do you think?”
“From this,” she waved her hand at the screen, “I can’t tell.”
“Which is the way it should be. Mystery, myth, longing, peppered with a dash of possibility. The ‘maybe’ is what keeps them coming back.”
“Your stories keep them coming back.”
“Sometimes, it’s hard to separate the two, which is why I should stay away from this shit. And why I don’t. I do a lot of living in my head. When I break out, I do a lot of experiences. It’s the way it is.”
“It’s an unreal way to live, don’t you think?”
“Some of us are destined to burn bright and fast.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a choice, not a destiny.”
I burned her cheeks with my smile. I was a prick like that. It was easy with most women, to work out what made them squirm, what made them melt, t
he hostility, the happiness. My looks were a gift, and the dimples and the smile weren’t my talent. What most guys didn’t understand was that if you added effort and knowledge, looks were immaterial.
“Let’s work out why you’re really here and how you can help me. Come and have a glass of wine with me.” I left the room, confident she’d follow.
I took the wine and glasses out to the patio, where we sat a safe distance from each other. The evening was warm, and at the bottom of the garden, a great blue heron took flight, looking almost prehistoric, almost struggling to become airborne as it gathered its long wings and hauled itself off the ground.
I handed Katrina a glass of wine.
“I shouldn’t if I’m working.” She’d brought a pen and notepad with her.
“This is casual. I’m outlining.”
“Oh, right.”
She made to pass the pen and notepad to me, but I stopped her with a raised hand.
“You’ve read the series?” I asked.
“Most of it,” she said, taking a gulp of wine as if even thinking about the stories required fortification.
“What worked for you, and what didn’t?”
“There’s a lot of sex.”
“Does that fall into the realm of what worked?”
“I think it does for your fans. I found Steele somewhat shallow. I don’t mean to be rude, but he’s not my type. I wouldn’t be able to trust him, and anyway, he’d never look at someone like me, so it’s not really an issue.”