by Cassia Leo
He sat down with his legs spread around me and leaned down and just set his mouth on the top of my head without giving me a peck. He sniffed my wet hair and sighed.
He looked so hot, so damn beautiful, with his thigh muscles rigid in his seated position. Looking him in the eye as he peered down on me, I slowly snuck a finger up the leg of his shorts and ran a soft, tickling stroke down his velvety scrotum. He slapped my arm, hard.
“Ow, fuck!”
“You’re lucky that wasn’t on your wet ass.”
“Yeah, lucky only in the bad kind of way. I’ve been waiting ages for your belt, Danny. Wasn’t kidding about that.”
A weighty exhale came out of his nostrils and he swung his attention over my shoulder. He looked back at me, his eyes practically glowing with need and definitely spilling the word, “Bad.” A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. He chomped down on the bottom one to try to conceal it. “I just wanted you closer. I didn’t say you could touch me.”
I didn’t have to touch him. The air between us became thick and ruddy, hot and crackling, with bright, fizzy sparklers flaring, as he reached down and caressed the sore spot he just rapped like a bug zapper. Our breaths sawed in and out unison and his warm huffs swept over my skin like dandelion seeds. I wanted him to rip my bottoms off and dive into my snatch. He didn’t.
Instead, he grabbed my hair and spun me around with a twist of his arm, then he reached under my armpits and hoisted me up and set me between his legs. The water pouring off of me drenched his gorgeous, fuzzy legs.
With both hands, I only dared to squeeze air above them in a pulse since I didn’t have permission to brush the wet snakes off of his flesh. I craved to touch his warm skin, his hard lines. My respiration and heartbeat quickened. I trembled as his exhales whisked my neck.
Using his fingers in a swipe, he slid all my hair to the front, leaned closer to wrap arms around me, and kissed the back of my neck. Mmm. I shivered and sighed and growled out his name. His teeth scratched, then bit into my flesh with pressure, making me seethe and roll back in waves against his hard torso. A sure path of dents was paved up to my ear. He sucked on my lobe with a loud kiss, and the delicious move made me moan and finally clutch his thighs. I needed to brace myself as I started to fly.
His fingers, hands, soul, claimed my breasts with hard squeezes, and I cried out in ecstasy and rocked into his sexy, rough grabs. “Danny!”
“Fuck. I don’t know if I can stay away from you. You’re so damn hot.”
“Don’t. Don’t stop. Who’s telling you to stop? It sure the hell isn’t me.”
“Everyone and everything.” He went back to kissing my neck, but then his finger and thumb quickly found the hot button between my legs and he pinched it deliciously.
“Oww.” I leaned forward and pushed on his commanding, owning fingers, urging him to keep going. “Danny! I don’t wanna wait anymore. Fuck me. Just take me now, right here.”
“No. That’s never gonna happen.” He shoved me back into the water, which made me screech and cough out the water I accidentally sucked in.
I whipped around with a swirl. “What the hell’s your problem? I’ve been bad for you, extremely bad. I’m your naughty, dirty slut, willing to do whatever you goddamn say. And you don’t want it? Well, fuck you!”
He stood to his feet. “You are my problem, Lex. And I don’t see how that’s gonna change anytime soon.”
I teared up when he up and left me like that. “Well, don’t worry, jerk!” I yelled. “I’m moving out as soon as possible, then you won’t have to worry about me being a problem or your fucking no-good baggage.”
“Good,” he yelled back from the stairs or whatever. “You do that.” He bashed something and he was good. “I can’t wait to see you a whole lot less.”
Less? “Same here!” I broke down and cried. What the hell. I don’t get him at all.
After my swim, I met up with Kate so we could hunt for a place to live. I was totally serious about getting out of here. I couldn’t damn take it. Danny was the most flip-flopping guy on the planet. One minute, he wanted to fuck me, and the next, he was telling me to kiss off. Whatever!
Kate was still dating Matty and talking nonstop about him everywhere we went. After looking at four apartments, we finally found the perfect place for us, a cute dollhouse cottage with five rooms, a deck, a fenced in backyard and a Jacuzzi on the breezeway. It was in our price range and the heat was included in the monthly rent. We paid our first and last month and the security deposit, and I immediately started packing when I got back to Danny’s.
Four days later, I was walking the last of my boxes into a moving truck and was out of his hair for good. I left any shit that reminded me of my mother with him, especially that fuck-shit, frilly pink apron.
Kate and I mostly shared the same taste, and we created a sweet-looking pad for two hot chicks.
But unable to be cool with Danny’s attitude, I kept checking my phone during our first movie-Chinese-takeout night in our place.
She paused Enchanted and huffed. “Okay, what’s up? You’re not a phone junkie like me. Who are you hoping will call?”
“Um, no one.” I started crying with my fist curled up at my eyes. “Shit. It’s been days. He … he doesn’t even miss me at all, not one bit.”
“Who? Danny? Why do you even care? You were rushing like a tornado to get out of there. And now we’re here, in our own place, and you don’t have to worry about him bossing you around anymore or telling you what to do. How cool are we?”
“Very,” I groaned, which didn’t sound convincing.
She agreed with my chalk up and cried, “Oh my god. How did I not see this before? You’re into Danny? You like him, like, for real, in a romantic, sexual way?” She covered her mouth with both hands as she pieced things together. “Oh my god.”
I choked up and started crying harder with my sobs sounding crunched up and stifled. I was tired of trying to hide how I felt from everyone, but that was dumb, and it was about time they knew. I clearly sucked at concealing my affection. “Not only that, I’m in love with him, Kate, and I’m so damn miserable without him.”
“Shit, Lex. Did you guys fuck or something?”
“No. Not yet. Everything’s been like a yo-yo so far, all hot and cold, and on and off. He doesn’t know what the hell he wants. I believe he’s afraid of what people are going to say and think. But I don’t even give a shit.”
“Well, it’s not your career on the line. This is … wow. This is huge. He’s sort of your brother. People might not be cool with this. Like Bill, your grandma, and Danny’s pack of screaming fans, to name a few.”
“I don’t even care. I don’t.
“Well, you should. You really need to think this whole thing through. You don’t want to destroy your life, or his, for something that might crush you both if it doesn’t work out.”
“But … what if it does? Work out. I don’t want to miss out on something hot and amazing.”
She shook her head. “Ah, I don’t know. I’m just saying, you really need to consider all the angles before getting into those tight jeans. You don’t want to do anything you might regret.”
“Yeah, but that’s the problem. I don’t know which regret would be worse. Crashing and burning in the hottest blaze I’ve ever known? Or not ever feeling the heat because it’s scary, uncertain and dangerous? It’s a crap shoot.”
But when I showed up for work the next day, I was forced to add the biggest check in the cons column when I found a new receptionist at the desk. The pretty Asian girl had a big smile for me, so at least she might be as nice.
“Hi, I’m Alexa. Not sure if Nina told you I’d be starting full-time today.”
“Yes, she did. Hi, I’m Lana.”
I shook her hand. “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m just surprised to see Ana gone. She helped me out a bunch of times when I interned here. Did she get another job?”
“I dunno. Maybe. She was fired.”
I s
aid, “Fired? Why?” out loud in shock, but I wasn’t expecting her to answer me.
“She went out with a client, a billionaire, and Nina found out about it.”
I chuckled and said, “And that’s bad? Why? What’s the big deal?”
“It’s against company policy. You didn’t know that?”
“Mmm, no.” Visions of Danny mauling my breasts flashed through my mind and made my walls squeeze. “Wait! Against? But… that would mean…”
“It’s grounds for termination of course. Raquel said that’s why you were put in charge of the Itchy Fringe account.”
“What!” I spat with my lips stretching tight against my teeth in my cringe. “I don’t see how my job performance relates to this issue.”
“Well, of course it doesn’t, directly. Everyone knows you’re not gonna be slipping in the sheets with Danny Zane. I mean, he’s your brother for Heaven’s sake.”
“But … I thought they liked my ideas and my fresh mind.”
“Oh, I’m sure they do. But you being related gave you the edge over everyone else. Cool, huh? Ya gotta climb the ladder somehow, and you’re so lucky to be getting an early jump. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah. A heartbeat,” I muttered. I looked around at this fraud of a place and snarled. No wonder that video conference was so weird and tense. No wonder Raquel’s pissed. I’d probably be miffed too if I were in her shoes. She doesn’t think I deserve to be team leader. Nina doesn’t either. I became a default by association, but I happen to be a default that’s just as susceptible to lust as anyone else in this damn building.
Oh my god. This was a total nightmare. I spun, with my heart pounding wildly, feeling like I was going to pass out.
If they only knew how badly I craved Danny’s hands on me and his filthy whispers in my ear … if they knew I already did things like masturbate on command … I’d lose … everything. And somewhere out there was a loose-cannon video, a silver bullet with the power to bring me down.
* * *
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Danny
My house felt so empty without my beautiful brat that it literally hurt to walk in the spaces she once occupied with vigor and light. She was away at college for four years, so you’d think I’d be used to this silence. But it was different now. It felt more final and cutting. I missed her perfume, her footsteps, her laugh. I missed her stealing the softest, fuzziest throw blanket and flipping the toilet paper roll around the wrong way just to piss me off. I wanted someone to tell me off. I wanted her to tell me off.
Damn that stalker. I hate her for stealing what’s most important to me, but I won’t let Alexa get hurt. It had to be much safer for her to be out of my presence than it in, rarely ever more than several feet away from, or worse, in my bed, nearly naked, with ties and a belt.
Before heading to a meeting at Momentum, I called my team to get an update on identifying this bitch once and for all and we got nothing. Same thing with police. They also had nothing to report. I was no closer to claiming the woman I craved more than air.
When Matty and I walked into the elevator in the building, a familiar voice shouted, “Hold it please.”
Alexa burst around the corner just in time, with the doors cashing into her arm and bouncing back open. She was totally winded, and her tits bounced in her fitted button-up blouse from her rapid breaths that smelled like yummy mint. Her hair had soaked up the scent of donuts and coconut coffee too like she’d just left a donut shot. Damn, she was walking breakfast.
The box was already half full but because of the unresolved tension between us, and the heavy fact that I hadn’t spoken to her, not even once, since she moved out, the air got sucked out of the small space and made it so unbearably stuffy.
I backed up into the gray wall and gripped the bar behind me. Her food perfume filled my senses, and her throat-clearing clucks made my nuts throb. Just the sound of her voice in any regard turned me on. If I were blindfolded, I’m sure I could pick her coughs and sighs out in a room of a million women. She was just a foot in front of me and I let my gaze coddle her ass. I clenched my eyes shut as the desire to grab it became overwhelming.
Matty snickered and elbowed me when I opened my eyes, let go of the bar, and reached for her hot curve. I held my breath after a hearty inhale and made a tight fist right behind an ass that could totally be sporting hidden pink presents from me right now. Bite marks. Belt stripes. Crop welts. Damn. It was a party waiting to happen.
The doors opened and more people came in, backing her closer to my singing skin. I couldn’t help it or stop it and grazed my finger along the line where the tender slope straightened into her thigh. She stiffened. She was so irresistible, so damn luscious. I ached to have her. I bit my lip and added more fingers to my glide. She was shaking profusely as I fully cupped her sexy globe, mmm, so warm and tight in my hand. When the bell chimed and the doors slid open on our floor, I lowered my arm and cleared my throat, acting like I was all innocent when I was actually a pent-up demon in chains. I couldn’t damn take what I wanted. People stepped out but I gripped her arm, so that we’d exit last. I whispered, “Only pink could make that thing hotter.”
She shrugged and curtly said, “Hmm. Wouldn’t know.”
Touché. I glared and followed Alexa and Matty down the hall. He was rubbing his stubbly jaw and laughing under his breath.
Aside from the three of us, my team was already seated. We sat down and Alexa opened the laptop that was already at the table. “I’m glad we can get started. I have a lot to go over.”
Nina sneered at Alexa for kicking this off on her own, but Alexa was no-nonsense, passing out notes that she copied for everyone and starting up a slide show.
Nina lifted her hand. “You’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Alexa. Perhaps Matty and Danny need a refresher on names. We can go around the room and say who is responsible for what.”
“No, I’m good. I don’t need damn introductions.” I spit out, “Decker here,” a tall, stylish black man with curly black hair, “is handling our image and look, and he’s already taken us shopping. We’re going back to our edgier style.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s a smart business decision,” Nina said. Did this woman not have confidence in anyone in her employ? She was a terrible judge of character. “Casual and easy would be my suggestion, like the pictures you showed me from Smitty’s.”
“No way, lady,” Matty said, making me chuckle. “Every bar band wears that crap. Decker knows his shit. Our fans loved us originally, not only because of our music but out kink-style edginess, and we lost that under Middleton’s rule. We’re free now to do whatever the hell we want. We discussed our ideas with Decker, and he whipped up—no pun intended—a perfect look that is totally us but fresher and better at the same time.
I said, “Raquel got us booked on the best shows and is handling our stage presence brilliantly, giving us excellent key points to bring up without making us sound like we’re inauthentic robots or somebody’s puppets. She gives us free rein. We love that.”
She beamed and blinked several times at the compliment.
“And Tony’s handling the rest of our media coverage. He’s been great man, just great. I don’t even know how many radio and magazine interviews we’ve done. Hundreds, probably. And Alexa, of course, is on top of this whole giant venue, all while finishing her degree and moving to her own place. But you? You’re the only one I’m at a loss about. I’m not quite sure what your job or contribution is though. How exactly are you helping us again?”
She looked staggered at first, but then majorly pissed. Ice daggers flew into my face. “I happen to be holding everything together, making sure everyone is doing their job correctly. I also found the location for your concert.” She looked at Alexa. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yep, that is correct,” Alexa said, punctuated by a lip bite. I could tell a bubbling stream of extra story was in that mind, a story that she was refusing to te
ll either out of respect for Nina or self-preservation to not burn her boss in front of the team.
Alexa said, “The only spot and time we could get is a block on Wednesday and Thursday in July in an outdoor amphitheater. It sucks, but it was the only thing we could get on such short notice. So, we have two months to get the word about Soar Free. The Wednesday was open and a tour canceled some dates, which opened up Thursday. Other concerts like this have been outdoors too, so it does fit the theme and purpose. With IF, I’ve got six major bands on board. They’re listed on the sheets I gave everyone. Those bands also had suggestions and requests, which we’ll need to go over. Maybe this can be an annual thing. I think that would be awesome.”
I looked at Matty and he was smiling as hugely as me.
“Sounds cool to me, Lex,” Matty said with a wink.
“Me too,” I added. “I love how everything has gelled together. You are awesome. I really appreciate all your hard work.”
We discussed more about our set list and the free promotion ideas for the event. The advertising department here was a new off-shoot of the company, and it has mostly done local stuff, so this would be its first major campaign. I must have a love for underdogs because I was really curious to see what that team came up with in terms of posters and radio copy.
This was so exciting. I couldn’t wait for this gig. I felt confident this would also open up more big venues for us so we could surely say ‘no’ to fucking dead-beat bars.
When we wrapped up, Matty left, and I wanted to talk to Alexa. She told me to fuck off, but I wasn’t about to quit yet.
“Lex,” I cried, walking after her as she hustled to the elevator.
I followed her in when the doors opened. She grabbed my arm with a fierce clutch and said in my ear, “There are cams in here. Don’t you dare feel me up again! You’ll fuck up everything for me. Plus, you’ve been nothing but a jerk to me. I don’t want you touching me. Got it?” She was seething and she had no idea her angry little breaths against my neck were making me stiff.