by Ash Harlow
I’d settled down for Lily, and for a while, I’d enjoyed the sense of calm it brought to my life. But we weren’t good for each other because what hovered beneath the surface was the way we made each other a bit crazy. We never wanted the same thing at the same time, and we became like two prisoners tethered by a chain, trying to escape over opposing walls. I think the real reason Lily came after me was an inner desire to shake her congenial child-star image and be a bad girl by adding some grit to her shiny exterior. A sort of reverse-halo effect.
She’d probably been in love with David all along. We were alike. Our reasons might be different, but we both found love frightening. I simply didn’t believe in it. What I did believe in was vulnerability and how addictive it was to adore and destroy another person you were enthralled by. That endless fucking cycle I’d watched from the grandstand seat of my childhood.
But Lily didn’t have it in her to be the bad girl she wanted to be. Even under the dim light of my dirty halo, she still shone brightly. Funny how I couldn’t rise and shine to her level at her side. Darkness trumps light, gossip trumps goodness, because the world wants the dirt.
Lily was better off with David. She’d see that soon enough. My heart wasn’t broken—you can’t crush something that hard—and I’m sure Lily’s wasn’t, either. You don’t take out a restraining order on someone you want to get back with. Fair enough. I shouldn’t have punched David, but Lily was playing a silly game, pitting us against each other. In the end, David appeared to be a good enough guy, even if he fought like a pussy.
I was thinking too hard, looking too deep, but Lily’s surprise visit unsettled me in the sense that it made me see what I didn’t have. I wondered if I simply needed to get down to the city and get laid, but those ideas vanished once I thought about Katrina’s blush.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through the latest messages. When I got into a relationship with Lily, I thought it would have killed off the fandom, but if anything, it just made the women more competitive.
Something caught my eye as the phone messages rushed up the screen. I swiped back. Yes. Finally, a message interested me. I hit the callback button, a plan already formulating in my mind.
I found Katrina in the back yard with Brown. He immediately abandoned the lesson he was having to run full-speed at me and hurl himself to his back at my feet. He adored having his tummy rubbed, and as I crouched down to do that, Katrina approached, phone at the ready to take some photos.
“I think you should call him Buster. Buster Brown. He likes Buster.”
“Do you, Brown? Is Buster Brown a good name for you? Is it? Buster, Buster, Buster.” I kept rubbing his stomach, and I swear, if a dog could giggle, that’s what he was doing as he writhed on his back.
Katrina caught the whole performance on her phone.
“Gonna change your name to Pap, Poppins,” I warned.
“You could use my real name. That would work.”
“Would it stop you taking this endless stream of photos?”
“This is a video, so don’t say anything rude,” she said, stalking me, the phone held at arm’s length from her face.
“Last video I was in was shopped around the TV stations and entertainment sites for a lot of money. And that was very rude. You’re losing the potential to make payday if you’re set on leaving any rude stuff out.” Brown was using my hand as a chew toy.
“Shut up and play with the dog.”
Katrina dropped to her knees, down at puppy level, resting her forearms on the ground. It gave me an excellent view down the front of her shirt so that all I could think of was my hands on her soft breasts. Instant crotch strain, but I couldn’t stop looking.
Katrina caught me and straightened up. “You’re supposed to be playing with the dog,” she said.
I was going to say something about the two puppies she had that I’d rather be playing with, but even I wasn’t that crass. “Come into the house and I’ll make you a smoked salmon, caviar and truffle pizza for lunch.”
She stopped videoing and pushed to her feet. “To be honest, that sounds absolutely gross.”
“Wait till you see what I do with it,” I suggested. “I had something similar in Italy last year.”
“You never did. No self-respecting Italian would do that to a pizza.”
“Come on, Poppins, get with the game. I’m trying to impress you here, and that food’s going to go bad, or in the dog, if we don’t finish it.”
Now she blushed about food. This was getting out of hand. I headed for the kitchen with Buster leaping excitedly at my side. He’d caught onto the meaning of caviar faster than ‘sit’. I’d already explained to Katrina that all she needed to do was say ‘caviar’ and Buster would behave like a qualifier for the world dog obedience champs. Could be something to do with the fact that I’d danced about the kitchen singing Caviar at the dog for way too much time last night, feeding him dollops of fish eggs every time he responded with his own crazy dance.
I really had bought too much of the stuff, and even though Katrina had expressed on one of her vision boards a desire to try the wild sturgeon delicacy, along with truffles, oysters, and a list of other exotic foods, she didn’t seem too taken with the taste. I’d bought the excellent non-pasteurized variety so it wasn’t going to last.
“I might just have a ham sandwich,” Katrina muttered, following me with some reluctance into the kitchen.
“Poppins, you’re being lame. You’ve got to try new things.”
“I tried it, remember? It choked me.”
There was only one image capable of entering my head when she said that. “Sometimes, the good things take practice. You need to hold it on your tongue a bit, get used to the taste. It can be a bit salty at first.”
“Fishy,” she said, screwing up her nose.
Nope, what I was thinking about had never been described as fishy. “Sit there, and I’ll make you something delicious.” She rolled her eyes. “Edible. And I’ll show you the caviar dance I taught Brown, I mean, Buster.”
We got through lunch. I made Katrina a salmon and dill pizza, which wasn’t too fishy for her, before I informed her of my next plan.
“No returning to the apartment this weekend, Poppins. I need you with me.” Naturally, her lovely cheeks turned pink.
“What for?”
“We’re going to Rhode Island. I’ve got some research to do, and I’ll need your help.”
“What about Buster?”
Her sense of responsibility was predictable. “Mason and June are going to take him.”
“Oh.” She looked reluctant. “Um, so, can you give me more details?”
“Rhode Island, research, bring a bikini.”
“I have something planned this weekend.”
“Cancel it. Say you’re working. I’ve booked the Lighthouse Suite at Castle Hill.”
“It’s a family thing.”
“Unless it’s a funeral, promise them you’ll turn up to the next one. Your family won’t mind.”
“You haven’t met my mother.”
I recalled the phone call I’d overheard and suddenly understood her reluctance. “When is it, this family thing?”
“Lunch, Sunday.”
“I’ll get you back for it. This is the only weekend I can do this research. It’s for the precious book.”
“I’m not sure about...”
I tried to read her face and guess what the stalling point was. “Newport? Fun? A weekend? Oh, the suite?”
She nodded, picking at a burned piece of pizza crust.
“Separate rooms, okay? Or I can book you a different suite.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. I couldn’t even believe what I was doing. Sure, catching up with Rip would be a blast, and he was hardly ever up this way these days, but what was it I was trying to achieve with Katrina? Maybe I was sick. Maybe I did just need to get laid, get her out of my system with a top-class blow job from someone who practiced her deep-throat skills daily on an English cucumbe
r.
I glanced at Katrina, who was sort of chewing the inside of her lip so that her mouth was all puckered up and glossy and just-there available for a little afternoon delight.
Fuck, I was sick. One look at her, and I couldn’t even think in my usual terms. Afternoon delight—what the fucking fuck? Blow job. Cock sucking. Never afternoon delight. That sounded like something my grandmother would have served on a delicately patterned china plate, along with her crust-off, diagonally-cut sandwiches.
Rip would pull me out of this state I was in. I should go alone.
“I’ll see,” Katrina finally said.
My excitement soared. I grabbed the caviar and did the dance with Buster until Katrina giggled so hard, I thought she’d wet herself. When she recovered, she started clearing up and sent me off to write.
I contacted the hotel and asked for two suites, but they said they had nothing else available. Good. By the end of the weekend, I’d be able to cross ‘encounter with an apex predator’ off Katrina’s list.
14
Katrina
“I might be a little late on Sunday.” I’d started stretching the time between my calls to Mom from daily to twice-weekly. Of course she complained, but I explained that I was busy working. That brought with it the expected tirade about my lack of compassion, but for some reason, working with Stone was giving me a new confidence.
I’d never sought my mother’s approval so much as I wanted her, for once, to be happy for me to a degree that would allow me to live my own life without her interfering. I learned early on that she got her hooks into approval seeking and played me like a sports fisherman. Still, it was difficult not to fall into her trap.
“Clarissa has to travel four hours, and she won’t be late. You’ve always had this way of making things difficult. I think you enjoy the drama. And, you still haven’t told me the name of the author you’re working for.”
“Because legally, that’s not possible.”
“Don’t use that tone, Katrina. I’m your mother. How can I look out for you if you’re hiding things from me?”
A dull pain set up at the back of my head. It would worsen if I stayed on the phone too long. If she knew I was going with Stone to Rhode Island, my life would be miserable. “I’m not hiding things, Mom. I’m simply working within the rules of the contract. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“You may think that, but this lack of consideration on your part is what I have to bear.”
A litany of my shortcomings was due, but I chose for once to end the call before she got started. “I have to go, Mom. Give my love to Dad, and I’ll see you Sunday.”
I don’t know what she was saying when I ended the call. I’d deal with that on Sunday. Mostly, I hoped I’d miss lunch altogether. Clarissa would be held up as the paragon of the ideal daughter, while Mom chipped away at any achievement I might feel I’d made.
I tried to remember all the things Carrie had taught me about not letting Mom get me down. Right now, she’d be working, so I sent her a text about not coming back to the apartment this weekend and asked for bikini advice.
The bikini thing was worrying. Could I get a beach body in a couple of days? Even thinking like that was nuts. I didn’t know what Stone expected, but he had a good enough idea of the shape of me. Removing a layer of clothes wasn’t going to reveal a supermodel underneath. I’d be less stressed if I had some idea of what was going to happen in Rhode Island.
I wished I could find the list again. In reading, I’d stumbled at the ‘Kiss a famous person’ and the betrayal I’d felt. And, true to his word, Stone had never mentioned the kiss again.
Of course, I was disappointed. Every single night in bed, I was disappointed that during the day, nothing more had happened beyond Stone’s teasing/not-teasing, flirting/not-flirting, unintentionally (I hoped) playing whack-a-mole with my emotions. I couldn’t tell if Stone was leading me on or if, just like his readers, I was inserting myself into a fictional narrative.
I’d look back on all of this one day as I folded laundry in a suburban house, with a couple of children playing in the yard and a husband due home from his white-collar job in the city, and laugh at the absurdity of my man-crush. At coffee mornings, I’d tell the other moms about the time I’d worked for the famous author and how I’d kissed him to help him write a book.
Stone would probably be onto his third wife, still making the most-read lists on the entertainment and gossip sites, and those moms would gasp and say what a manwhore he was, but how he was hot and dangerous too. For a small moment, I’d be held in awe.
Yes, my short brush with Stone would be enough for me.
Stone looked gorgeous. His jeans fit perfectly, and the t-shirt almost hugged him, but draped just enough to make you think more carefully about what was behind it. The leather jacket he wore was butter soft, and I wanted to slide my hands inside and see if the cotton of his shirt had the same qualities. Beneath all that soft cloth, I knew, was a body that was hard. Around his neck was a casually looped Damien Hirst skull scarf. I worried he’d get mugged for it.
His bag was a classic Louis Vuitton Keepall. I knew about his luggage and scarf because I looked them up on my cell when he was standing off to the side of the platform making a call while we waited for our train at Penn Station. I only did that because Carrie had asked for every detail, and when the time came for my completely normal wife-life, I wanted the finer details of my time with Stone cemented in my memory so that my story would be laced with authenticity.
My new approach for being with Stone had almost settled my crush. This was a project, a blip in my otherwise mundane life that I’d document to the last detail the way one does a vacation on an exotic island. A once in a lifetime memory to treasure.
In comparison, my own luggage was a plain, hard shell wheelie in black, with silver trim. It had looked classy when I bought it, and at least it wasn’t covered in psychedelic flowers, which was the one Carrie had talked me out of buying. It had caught my eye because I knew it would irritate my mother, but Carrie suggested it wasn’t the right way to escape her narcissistic hold. Better to do it with counseling than luggage choices. She was probably right.
We traveled first-class, and as the train rolled out of the station, I settled into the luxurious seat in the near-empty car. Stone gave me the seat by the window, and he shifted in beside me, immediately opening his laptop. I should have been pleased with his new work ethic, but for some reason, I was stupidly excited and hoping we could chat through the journey.
I watched out the window for a bit, then pulled out my Kindle. I was up to book six on the Steele Heart series binge I’d been on since taking the contract. I angled myself slightly so that Stone couldn’t see what I was reading. It was easy to tell I was approaching another torrid sex scene—they appeared in every other chapter, after all—and I didn’t want him to see the effect the eroticism of his writing had on me.
The train ride was relatively smooth, but the occasional corner and bump meant our legs brushed. The first time it happened, I snapped mine together, keeping my focus on the story as I casually relaxed my legs again. Stone hadn’t moved his, so I decided the next time we touched, I’d stay in place and see what happened.
I tried to concentrate on the story, then tried not to as Steele, the book’s character, went down on the lucky female lead, licking her, penetrating her with his fingers. The carriage began to feel airless, making me tug at the neck of the sweater I wore, eventually pulling it off.
Stone spoke as I eased the sweater over my head, trying not to wreck the hairstyle I’d spent twenty minutes on this morning.
“Heating up there, Poppins?”
“I think it’s the air conditioner. They must have it up too high,” I lied, my voice muffled through the sweater still covering my head. I finally freed myself, stuffing the garment alongside me, only to see that my Kindle had gone from the table.
I glanced at Stone, who was nodding, his focus on my missing Kindle. He lo
oked up and gave me a grin, complete with dimples and a wink.
“This works for you, huh?”
“Sarah said I had to read your books.”
“Because romance isn’t your thing.”
“I don’t usually read it.”
“Of course you don’t. Nobody actually reads it in the same way nobody actually masturbates.” He flicked through a few pages. “Here you go,” he said, passing it back to me. “I found you the really hot part. He fucks her pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window of his penthouse. It’s night, and the lights are on. Across in another building, someone watches. Steele knows this, but the girl, Lissa, she’s completely oblivious. He makes her bend a little at the waist to give their watcher a good view of her perfectly enhanced tits that scarcely move—filled as they are with silicone—as Steele pounds into her. When he’s close to blowing his load, he pulls out, puts her to her knees, and finishes in her mouth.”
I swallowed and squeezed my legs together to ease the ache in my pussy. “Thanks,” I muttered, taking my Kindle from him and slapping the cover closed.
“Hope I didn’t spoil the story. There’s a lot more detail that I probably missed telling you. I can demonstrate, if you’d like.”
Dear God, his voice. I still needed more air. Trying to keep my breathing normal was impossible when my body had increased its demand for oxygen. I pushed to my feet. “Excuse me.” I edged past him. “I need...the bathroom.”
Squeezing past Stone meant a lot of leg-on-leg contact. He steadied me with his hands on my hips as the train cornered at exactly the wrong moment. I made it to the bathroom, pushed the door closed, leaned against it, and pulled in some long, deep breaths.
I don’t think I was inflating what had just happened back there with my imagination. The offer to demonstrate still rang in my ears. If I died now, with those being the last words I ever heard, I’d die happy—not necessarily fulfilled, but happy. In the mirror, I looked the same, if not a little flushed. I splashed cold water over my face, ruining the barely nude makeup I’d carefully applied. With a paper tissue, I blotted my eyes. At least my mascara had remained intact.