by Jolie Day
“You good?” he asked.
Brooke nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her.
“Yes!” she yelled back. Tony nodded, placed his own helmet back on, and then took off.
Brooke had never felt so free in her life.
Chapter Six
Brooke didn’t pay attention to where they were headed until she glanced up and saw the lights of New York City above their heads. They were in Manhattan again, somewhere around Midtown. Cars honked all around them, but Tony paid them no mind as he weaved in and out of traffic, driving with a grace that Brooke had never experienced before with anybody else.
It was like a dance.
Her arms tightened around him, pressing herself more firmly against his back. If she hadn’t been wearing her helmet, Brooke might have been enticed to kiss the back of his neck. As embarrassing as this would have been, she would have had no regrets. He probably tasted amazing.
She was glad that she was wearing a helmet.
When they finally stopped, Brooke’s body was still vibrating with both the excitement and the hum of the motorcycle’s engine. They were no longer outside, but in the parking garage of some kind of building. Even after Tony turned the engine off, she could feel the vibrations between her legs and she bit her lip.
“You can let go now,” Tony said and Brooke flushed bright red, removing her hands as if she’d been burned.
She laughed, nervously. “Sorry,” she said.
“I’m not complaining,” he retorted. “I just thought you might like to see where we stopped.”
The spot that Tony had parked on had his last name painted in silver on the wall in front of them and she couldn’t hide how impressed she was as she slipped off her helmet and shook out her hair, which had started to come loose from the bun she kept it in.
She took the hair tie out and ran her hand through the strawberry-blonde locks, sighing at the release of tension. When she glanced back up, she saw Tony looking at her with a lustful look on his face.
She blushed and tucked the hair tie into her purse, looking around the white-painted parking garage.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My place,” Tony replied, offering her his arm. At Brooke’s widened eyes, he laughed. “Don’t worry, Miss Abernathy,” he said. “I promise there will be no impropriety tonight—unless you ask nicely.” He winked at her.
She rolled her eyes, and couldn’t help but smile.
“There’s actually a cocktail lounge on the top floor, if you’re interested.” The look on his face told Brooke that he wasn’t about to force her to go with him. She had the notion that, if she asked, he would hail her a cab back to her father’s place and that would be the end of it.
But she found that she really didn’t want to do that—no matter how tired she had been just moments ago.
Now, she was wired.
“Definitely interested,” she said, smiling up at him in a way that she hoped was more saucy than exhausted.
“Then follow me,” Tony said, leading her toward a chrome elevator just a few feet away. He pulled out a key card and swiped it. The elevator opened swiftly and Brooke couldn’t help the slight thrill that went up her spine as they stepped on, never breaking contact.
“Impressive, Mr. Dunham,” she practically purred, leaning slightly into his space as the doors closed. She watched the satisfied smile appear on his face and prayed that she would see it much more often, from here on in.
In fact, she thought to herself, she was going to make that her mission.
*****
The lounge was dimly lit and intimate. There were only a few other people there and they all looked rather wealthy, with their expensive clothing and sparkling jewelry. They lounged on sofas, most of them draping themselves on one another and sipping pink champagne and other fruity drinks.
The bartender smiled up at them as Tony and Brooke entered. “Good morning, Mr. Dunham,” he greeted. “Your usual?”
“Good morning, Vince,” Tony replied, leaning against the bar, his arm binding around Brooke’s waist. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
He glanced at Brooke. “You want a drink?”
“It’s too early,” she laughed.
“Never too early for a Tequila Sunrise,” he retorted, as Vince slid the drink across to him.
“True,” Brooke conceded. “I’ll have what he’s having. Thanks.”
“Birds of a feather,” Vince replied, winking as he whipped up another drink. Brooke laughed and reached into her purse for her wallet, but Tony’s hand on hers caused her to pause as she looked up at him. He shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Vince, you know what to do.”
“It’s already done, Mr. D,” Vince replied. “Enjoy your drinks. The lounge will close at six.”
“That gives us…” Tony looked down at his watch, “about two hours to talk. Thanks Vince.”
He led Brooke to a nearby table, placing both of their drinks down and inviting her to sit down on the velvety-looking couch before sitting down himself. Their shoulders brushed and Brooke swallowed thickly, clearing her throat. She took a long sip of her Sunrise to calm her nerves, before speaking.
“So,” she said, “what would you like to talk about?”
“You,” Tony replied. “Tell me a bit about yourself, Brooke. Where did you grow up?”
Brooke looked out the window, but they were too high up for her to see a street sign. “I’d say about a dozen or so blocks away,” she replied. “My father’s apartment is on the Upper East Side.”
“You come from money?” Tony asked.
Brooke shook her head. “My father worked very hard for what we had, but my grandfather was wealthy,” she informed him, “although, he and my dad didn’t talk very much. When he died, though, he never made a will so my dad just got his estate. He used the money to buy us a nice place with an elevator.”
“Not a fan of walking?” he asked.
Brooke shrugged. “He was,” she said, “before he got paralyzed.” She took another long sip of her drink. She didn’t usually like to talk about this kind of thing with anybody, but there was something about Tony Dunham that made her feel safe and calm. Something that made her want to open up to him.
“I’m sorry about that,” Tony said, looking genuine.
Brooke shrugged. “It was a long time ago. He’s pretty good at dealing with it. He won’t let me help him with anything.”
Stubborn, huh?” Tony laughed.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Brooke snorted. “It’s also part of why my mother left.”
After mentioning her mother, the floodgates seemed to open and Brooke jumped headfirst through them, taking Tony through her entire tragic past, with her father getting shot in the line of duty, to the depression and anger that followed, to her mother finally walking out the door and never looking back. She could feel him listening with his entire being and it made her feel…strange.
She had never thought that anybody would be interested in hearing about her sad childhood, but here he was; a handsome, wealthy businessman, listening to her talk about her history as if he actually cared.
She couldn’t help but wonder, what was his story?
“Tell me a bit about you now,” she retorted. “Did you grow up wealthy?”
Tony snorted and shook his head. “Not in the least,” he said. “I grew up in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. My family was dirt poor and my dad was a mean old drunk. He exchanged half of our food stamps for alcohol.”
“But you didn’t let that stop you from becoming rich,” Brooke pointed out as she finished off her drink. She was starting to feel the buzz warming her from the toes up. She took a deep breath.
“Money was never the goal, to be honest,” Tony admitted. “I just wanted to get away from him. My first job was delivering newspapers when I was twelve. Then, as I got older, I got in with a crowd of ‘troublemakers’. They taught me how to gamble and, well, the rest is history.
” He motioned around them at the private cocktail lounge.
“You must have been really lucky,” Brooke said, with a wry smile.
“And persistent,” Tony added. “You want another one of those?”
Brooke shook her head. “If I do, I’ll be too hungover to work tonight,” she warned.
Tony laughed. “And we wouldn’t want that,” he said. Still, he picked up her glass and his own, half-finished one, bringing them over to the bar and handing them over to Vince to wash out. The two men shook hands and Tony walked back to the table, offering his hand to Brooke. “Come on,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Brooke asked, accepting the offered hand.
“Back to my place,” he informed her. “Get you some water or coffee or something to keep that headache at bay.”
Brooke nodded and allowed him to lead her back to the elevator, leaning heavily against his body. She couldn’t really blame the alcohol for this; she wasn’t that much of a lightweight. There was just something so…magnetic about him. She was practically purring as the doors closed and she shut her eyes, inhaling the smooth scent of his cologne.
When the elevator chimed, Brooke opened her eyes and gasped. She might have fallen over if Tony wasn’t holding onto her, because the vast apartment in front of her was simply stunning.
The main room itself was twice as large as her father’s entire apartment (which wasn’t small in the least), but she could see several rooms branching off the first one. Attached was a fully stocked kitchen and dining room. In the living room, there was a fireplace and a sixty-inch flat screen television on the wall. Toward the back, she could see stairs that most likely led to even more rooms—and probably Tony’s bedroom.
Tony chuckled and she could feel the vibrations against her ear. “Welcome to Chez Dunham,” he said, leading her inside. Tony sat her down at a breakfast island and opened a stainless steel refrigerator, taking out two bottles of water (with an expensive brand name), handing one of them to her.
“Drink,” he said. “It’ll keep you hydrated.”
Brooke took a long sip of the water and allowed the cool liquid to move through her and quench her thirst. Her eyes closed of their own accord and she could swear that she let out a low moan.
When she opened her eyes again, Tony was no longer standing by the fridge. Instead, turning her head, Brooke came face to face with him and gasped. Their noses brushed and she looked up into his eyes, suddenly breathless.
Slowly, Brooke put down her water on the counter, never losing eye contact with Tony as she watched his gaze flicker from her eyes down to her lips, and back again. She swallowed thickly and licked her own lips.
Then he broke.
Before she knew it, Brooke was in Tony’s arms, their mouths connected as her back was pressed into the counter’s edge. She moaned into his mouth, her hands mapping his body, pulling at the leather coat until he slid it from his body, leaving him only in a button-down. She ran her hands through his hair, messing up the carefully-done ‘do, though Tony didn’t seem to mind at all.
His hands were already on her thighs, burning a trail under her skirt, where his fingers teased at the crotch of her panties. Brooke gasped when she felt the tip of his index finger brush against bare skin and wetness that immediately started to flood between her legs. In turn, she reached for the belt of his jeans and undid the buckle swiftly, before tugging it off of him and undoing the button and zip of his jeans. She did all this while he continued to tease her with his fingers and his tongue in her mouth.
When she finally reached bare skin, Brooke wrapped her fingers around the length of him and squeezed, forcing a moan from between Tony’s lips. He pressed closer, hooking his hands around her thighs and pulling her to the edge of the stool, before reaching back underneath her skirt and ripping the crotch of her cheap lace panties with a single finger. Brooke gasped in lust and reached for his shoulders, digging her nails in as Tony entered her with one swift thrust.
He paused for a long moment, feeling her insides squeeze around his shaft as she felt the burn of him stretching her more than she’d ever been stretched before. She wasn’t too experienced with men, and she’d certainly never had anything this size inside of her. It was…
Indescribable.
Brooke practically sobbed when he pulled out, then moaned throatily as he thrust himself back inside of her, his hands gripping her hips as he set an even pace. Brooke’s nails scored down his back as she held on for the ride, huffing against the skin of his neck as he pumped in and out of her, his finger joining in to bring her to the edge.
She came with a scream, his first name on her tongue as she felt him fill her to the brim. Their bodies went limp over the kitchen counter, their hearts beating in synchrony as the sweat dried on their foreheads.
As heavy as Tony’s body felt over hers, Brooke felt as though she were floating on a cloud.
Chapter Seven
Light filtered in through the windows, stretching across the master bedroom and falling across the California King-sized bed, atop which lay the naked, curvy body of Brooke Abernathy. As the sun spread over her bare skin, warming her from the outside in, Brooke began to stir, a smile stretching her lips as she reached behind her, feeling for the man that had been spooning her as they drifted off the night before.
But the bed was empty at her back. Brooke’s smile turned into a frown as she shifted and turned over, blinking her eyes open in the bright, sunlit room. She breathed a deep sigh when she saw that the other side of the bed was bare, the bedsheets smoothed down and no longer in their rumpled state from the night before.
Where did he go? she wondered as she sat up in bed, holding the sheets to her chest. And how come I didn’t feel him get up? I must have been out like a light.
Brooke turned toward the bedside table, reaching for her phone, which had, at some point, been hooked up to a charger. The battery was now full and she could see several notifications on the lock screen. She unhooked it and laid back in bed, flicking through her missed texts and calls.
Brooke groaned when she saw the ten missed calls from her father and pressed her face into her pillow when she saw his cringe-worthy attempt at texting. She ignored the misspelled words in favor of listening to his voice mails, which became increasingly more worried. At one point, he threatened to call his old friends in the NYPD to go out and search for her.
Finally, Brooke sighed and dialed his number, placing the phone against her ear. He answered after the second ring.
“Where the hell are you?” her father boomed. Brooke held the phone away from her ear as he berated her. He’d done this a lot when she was a kid and would forget to call if she went somewhere right after school. Or even last year, when her train had been delayed for a couple of hours during the winter and she didn’t have service underground. It was just one of those things she’d come to expect from her father.
At least she knew that he cared.
“Sorry, Pop,” Brooke sighed. “I stayed over with one of my co-workers this morning and I must have passed out before I could call you. In my defense, my shift did end at, like, four in the morning. I figured you’d already be asleep.” None of that was a lie. Not exactly. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Brooke could hear her father’s deep sigh on the other end. “As long as you’re alright,” he said. “Just…make sure you call me before going over to your friend’s house, alright? I was up all night, just waiting for you to walk through the door. I had to call in sick for work today.”
Brooke grimaced. She knew how much her father hated missing work. That was just as true today as it was when he was an officer.
“Sorry, sorry,” she sighed. “I didn’t even mean to stay that long, to be honest. It just…happened.” She glanced across the room, where she found her clothes draped across the back of one of the lounge chairs by the floor-length windows and smiled, her heart skipping a beat. “I’ll be su
re to let you know next time I think I might stay out, okay? So you don’t end up waiting for me.”
“Oh, you know me,” her father huffed. “I’ll probably still lose sleep worrying. I always worry about you, kid.”
“I know, Pop,” Brooke replied, her voice soft and understanding. “But you really don’t have to. I can take care of myself, you know? You taught me how.”
He chuckled and Brooke could practically see him nod, thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I did, didn’t I? Okay, button, you just let me know if you’re coming home tonight, okay? I was thinking we’d order in Italian for dinner before you head out to work, if you’re up to it.”
“Sounds good, Pop,” Brooke replied. “I’ll see. I might stay here until then, but a nice dinner sometime this week sounds good. Maybe on my day off?”
“It’s a date, sweetie. Be safe.”
“Always. Love you.”
“Love you.”
Brooke pressed ‘End’ and placed her phone back on the end table, before wrapping the sheets around her body and standing up from the bed. They dragged along behind her on the carpet as she made her way out into the main apartment. The kitchen was just outside and Brooke could feel her face heat up as she thought about the night before and what they’d done on the counter. She bit her lip and wrapped the silk sheets more tightly around her body as she glanced around the apartment for any sign of life.
There was none and Brooke sighed, sitting down at the counter and taking a deep breath, memories from last light flashing behind her closed eyelids. Of Tony above her, surrounding her, inside her…
Her eyes popped open and landed on a small sheet of stationary just a few feet away. She reached for it, noticing the smooth lines of the pen strokes and smiled to herself as she began to read.
Dear Brooke,
Sorry to leave you alone so early, but I had some business I have to attend to before going back into work. I’ve left you the phone numbers for the café and several restaurants in the building, so whenever you’re hungry, you can just call and order whatever you want. They’ll just add it to my tab. You can also take a soak in the Jacuzzi tub in my bathroom if you’re so inclined or watch whatever you want in my home theater. I’m afraid we won’t see each other until later, at work, but feel free to relax and treat my home as your own.