LOVERS

by Roxy Harte

  I am really grateful to Lexi though, because of her I have gallery representation. And since she was instrumental in getting me the exhibit at the most exclusive gallery in Los Angeles, I asked her to dinner to celebrate.

  Through the entire meal, all I can think about is how she looks naked…her hair messed up and her eyes slanted with lust. How she sighs just before she orgasms.

  Dinner seems to drag on and on because I can’t get my head in the right place, and then it’s over and I’m walking her to the car, but I don’t want the night to end.

  Standing in the restaurant’s parking lot, I go through all of the legitimate reasons why I shouldn’t kiss her, namely because I don’t think it will end with a kiss, but mostly the consequences of ending up in her bed, knowing that she already has a problem with Adrian in my life. I’m not willing to consider giving him up, even though Phelps is back.

  I’m not going to lie. I have a hard time stomaching Phelps, but then I think of the adversarial relationship Adrian has with Jameson. Somehow he and Bianca make it work.

  I open the passenger side door without kissing her. That I have somehow defied temptation seems a hollow victory as I drive her back to her place. Should I walk her to her door? I know I’m an idiot for wanting to kiss her goodnight. Why get things started again? I need to leave well enough alone—

  She kisses me before I can even finish the thought—and then I am running my hand over her thigh and under her ass, pulling her as close as I can with the console between us. Whoever invented bucket seats was a sadist, because if I could just…

  She lifts her skirt, or maybe it just gets shimmied up in the fight to get closer to each other. All I know is the shift of fabric reveals no panties.

  She sat across from me in the restaurant for hours, wearing no panties. I could have…

  My hand reacts to the thought, plunging low, finding her wet, needy. “You are a very naughty girl, Lexi Dade-Smith.”

  “Am I?” She smiles shyly.

  “In my experience naughty girls are crying out for attention.”

  She closes her eyes and gasps as I find her sweet spot, rubbing her clit just the way I know she likes it. “I like your attention.”

  “You like this attention,” I say, “but how would you feel if I decided to spank you for being such a naughty girl?”

  Her hips buck in response.

  “Do you need to be spanked?”

  “Oh!”

  I rub more softly, making her push harder against my fingers. “Do you?”

  She starts to pant and I know she’s close, so close to coming. I pull my fingers away, and she moans with frustration. “Oh God, Toby.”

  I push away from her, lifting my eyebrow. “Ask me inside.”

  “Yes, yes. Please. Come inside,” she agrees readily.

  “No, ask me inside, knowing that I am going to spank you for being naughty, and then after I’ve spanked you and your ass is flaming, then I’m going to fuck you.”

  She pauses, licking her lips. She wants to say yes, but her mind is at war with her body. I can tell the moment she makes her decision, because it is written plainly on her face. “Come inside, Toby. I’ve been a very naughty girl.”

  Wow.

  I think a choir of angels just hit a high note. I don’t even try for cool as I jump out of my car and hurry around to open her door.

  “Are you always so chivalrous?” she asks.

  “I’m just winging it here,” I admit. “Doing what feels right.”

  She smiles and winks. “You have good instincts.”

  Inside her living room my instincts fizzle out and I am left feeling awkward and scared. I’ve never topped anyone. Ever. I’ve watched Bianca top and Adrian’s topped me, but neither one of them looked like they had any doubts at all about what they were doing. I look at Lexi. She is so beautiful in the floral sundress she picked to wear tonight. She also looks nervous.

  Nervous because I promised to spank her.

  Now what?

  Can she tell I’m sweating bullets? Can she tell I have absolutely no idea what to do next? I walk across her living room, hoping to buy time. Time to think. I turn on a lamp and sit in a wide, deep chair. She’s still standing, not moving. I think she’s waiting for the what next as well as I am.

  “Take off your dress,” I say.

  Her eyes go wide and her hand shakes a little as she unzips her dress and I think, is that how I react when a scene begins? I nod. It is. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve played with Adrian, the minute play begins, I tremble a little. Nerves? Fear? Anticipation? Adrenaline? Maybe it’s a combination of all four. It’s cool seeing it played out in front of me. I try to keep my poker face going. I’m so cool I could freeze ice cubes.

  Right.

  She is beautiful, standing in the puddle of fabric at her feet. Naked, not moving, she stares at me. I gesture her forward, and she walks toward me.

  “I’m going to spank you now,” I tell her.

  She nods, looking nervous. Her lips separate to say something, but she remains quiet.

  I scoot forward in the chair and pat my thighs. “Bend over my lap.”

  She acts unsure, but she obeys.

  I remember Bianca saying in the class I watched, If you expect your bottom to obey, they will. If you doubt yourself, you might as well quit now.

  My hand lands on her bare ass with a loud crack, the sound louder than I expected. Oh, shit. I wait for her to jump up and run. She doesn’t. I watch the flaming red imprint of my hand appear on her ass cheek. “Do you know why I’m spanking you?”

  “Because I was naughty?” she answers.

  I chuckle. “Because I want to, and you gave me the perfect excuse.”

  My hand comes down again, though not as hard. She flinches as if I’d spanked her twice as hard. I rub my hand over the growing warmth rising from her bottom. I spank her again, several swats, hard, but still not as hard as the first. I warm her bottom, I warm my hand, hoping her ass is stinging as much as my palm.

  “Arch your back,” I say when she starts to sag, and she tries. I take my hand across her ass hard. “I said arch your back.”

  She arches.

  “Straighten your legs more, so that you can really lift your ass for me.”

  She straightens her legs, lifts her ass, and arches her back.

  I smooth my hand over her pink ass, saying, “Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.” I slide my fingers down, finding the soft fullness of her labia. Feeling between her folds, I find her wet. She gasps. “I think you like being spanked.” She moans, and I slide a finger inside of her. I encourage her softly, “Tell me.”

  “I like it when you spank me.”

  I push my other hand under her, between my thighs and her body, finding her clit. I rub her like I did in the car, getting her worked up, but this time, while I’m rubbing her, I spank her, softly at first and then a little harder. She moans and pants. I can tell by her pants that her body is so close, so very close. I rub her ass instead of striking, bringing her higher. It’s like I’ve done this a hundred times before, like I know her body by heart because I know just when to turn the soft rub into a light spanking that will take her completely over the edge.

  When she comes back down and she lies trembling over my thighs, I pull her up and into my lap. “Did you enjoy that?”

  She blushes with embarrassment but nods.

  “So, you don’t have any experience with BDSM at all, do you?”

  She bites her lip before admitting, “Nipple clamps and a blindfold once, but nothing like tonight.”

  I lean in to kiss her. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  A BEDSIDE ALARM GOES off, and I know it isn’t time to go to work yet. Lexi says, “Oh, sorry, it’s midnight. I really need to catch Entertainment Tonight. It’s a dreadful journalist habit, keeping in touch with what everyone else is doing. Do you mind?”

  I shake my head, and she uses the remote to turn on the television. I’ve notice
d that she has a television in every room of the house, even one mounted from the ceiling in her bathroom and angled at the tub. I don’t even own a television set.

  “Wow,” she says, and seeing her brow is furrowed, I turn my attention to the television screen. She turns up the volume. “Protesters.”

  I chuckle. “What are they protesting now?”

  “Paparazzi,” she answers while we watch the quick snippets of interviews with Tom Cruise, Lindsay Lohan, and Katherine Heigl.

  Then a face pops on that I don’t expect to see: Bianca. I scoot to the edge of the bed, suddenly interested. “What the heck?”

  “Who is it?” Lexi asks.

  “Adrian’s girlfriend.”

  She shakes her head. “How do you say that so calmly? I’d be too jealous to be polyamorous.”

  “Sh-h,” I say, not believing what I’m hearing. “Who is Bebé?”

  Lexi answers distractedly, “Her claim to fame is a hit song twelve, no, thirteen years ago. I think it was called…that’s it…Love Me.”

  I look at her and see she has her cellphone, googling.

  Pictures flash across the TV screen of Bebé then, and Bianca today, followed by photos of Adrian, Jameson, Phelps, an employee at Wicked Pleasures, and me. I jump up and manually turn the volume up.

  The Entertainment Tonight host chuckles. “That’s right, Mary, forget love triangle, we actually have a full six-pack of love going on here.”

  Footage from my fitness show flashes across the screen before switching to a live feed from the courthouse.

  “Holy shit, Toby, that’s you! Great body shots. You are so hot!”

  I shush her to hear what is being said on the screen: “And it was this paparazzi chase that led to the protests at the courthouse today.”

  I watch in disbelief as a sky cam follows Bianca’s SUV and the pursuing paparazzi. It’s like a high-speed police chase, but without the police…and after she gets caught up in the interstate traffic jam…without the speed. It’s almost laughable, but knowing Bianca is the one behind the wheel of the SUV, it isn’t funny at all. “This isn’t live, right?”

  “No, it is probably from yesterday’s news, or even the day before. That’s insane,” Lexi comments. “Do you know if Bianca is bisexual?”

  “You’re going to interview her?”

  Lexi shrugs. “That’s my job, interviewing headliners.”

  I shake my head and pull on my jeans. “I have to go.”

  “Go? Where are you going? I thought you were staying tonight.”

  I throw on my shirt. “I’m going to Adrian’s to see if Bianca is all right.”

  Lexi jumps off the bed and starts rummaging for clothes. “If you’re going to Adrian’s, I’m coming with you.”

  “It really isn’t necessary,” I say.

  She pulls on a bra, shirt, dress pants, and slips into her three-inch “work heels” before I can get the shoestrings on my boots tied. “There, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  “Seriously, Lexi.”

  She shrugs. “Call me a selfish journalist. I want to be on the front line of this story, and I know that Adrian is bisexual if nothing else.”

  I snort, saying under my breath, “Call you jealous.”

  “Ha, ha. I heard that.”

  AS SOON AS I SEE ADRIAN, I regret our argument. He looks haggard. I go to him and hug him without thinking what Lexi will feel. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s been a crazy day.”

  “Have you slept since I saw you?”

  He scratches his head. “Ah, no.” He looks pointedly at Lexi, and while still holding me against him, reaches out a hand. “I’m Adrian. You must be Lexi.”

  She shakes his hand, stuttering, “L-Lexi Dade-Smith, The Advocate.”

  He snorts. “Are you here in an official capacity then? Because none of us are giving interviews at the moment.”

  She ducks her head and releases his hand. “If you should change your mind…” She pulls out a business card and starts to hand it to him. He refuses it, and she ducks her head again, saying, “I’ll just leave it on the table.”

  He hugs me tighter. “I am so glad you are here.”

  “How’s Bianca holding up? I saw the paparazzi chase. That was crazy.” I look around the room, then into his eyes. “Is she at her house? Alone? Can that be safe?”

  “She flew the coop. She’s in Tokyo.”

  “Yeah,” Phelps adds from the couch, looking at Lexi accusingly. “Left us to deal with the crazy journalists.”

  I almost laugh when Lexi takes a step closer to the door, but I’m more concerned about Bianca. “What’s in Tokyo?”

  “Not what, who,” Adrian whispers against my face.

  I open my mouth to ask, but his eyes hold a warning as he casts a quick glance toward Lexi.

  “Oh. Great,” she says. “One of the crazy journalists is in the room so you aren’t going to talk freely? I get it. I can go now.”

  “Please do,” Phelps says.

  Lexi storms to the door and pulls it open, looking at me expectantly. “Well?”

  I look from her to Adrian.

  “You’re asking for permission to leave?” she demands incredulously.

  “Lady, if you even knew what you are talking about—”

  I press my fingers to Adrian’s lips and promise, “I’ll be right back,” as Lexi runs down the steps.

  I catch up to her in the alley behind the building. There isn’t a single person in sight, let alone a paparazzi, and for that I’m thankful as I grab her upper arm and spin her to face me.

  “What is your problem? You’re the one who wanted to come here with me, and just because you are with me doesn’t give you the right to be rude to my friends.”

  She looks at my hand, holding onto her upper arm tight. I don’t let go, even after I decide I should, even though I think that I might be bruising her arm.

  “Lexi!”

  Her gaze finally turns to mine. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just—” She looks away, looking for a moment like she might cry, but then when her gaze returns to mine it has been fueled with anger. “I didn’t realize that he would be so big. When I think of him, with you, and I imagine him hitting you. Ergh!”

  I kiss her.

  I grab her by the nape and hold her where I want her until I am done kissing her. I growl into her mouth, wanting her to know that I’m still the same woman I was last night. I can still top her, even though I allow Adrian to top me. And she didn’t even see that. She just imagined it. How much worse would it be if she ever saw me in his rope?

  I feel powerful, holding her, kissing her, almost raping her mouth, though it isn’t rape because she isn’t saying ‘no’, she isn’t fighting against me, it just feels so powerful to kiss her this way, and I love that feeling. “Don’t imagine it then. Don’t think about me being with him. Just think about what we share when we’re together.”

  Damn. The light bulb that goes off in my head is blinding and life altering. I already knew this, so why have I been making it so hard? Why am I so threatened by Phelps?

  Because he wants to be primary?

  He can be primary.

  It won’t change anything between Adrian and I. It’s just a word, just another label. What do I care what the label is? Especially now. I want Lexi, I want Lexi almost enough to give up Adrian, and this is a battle that will be won or lost tonight.

  “Lexi,” I say softly, “I want you to be mine.”

  “Are you going to keep seeing him?”

  I nod. “Sometimes. I want his rope. I want his dominance.”

  “Why?” she asks, and it sounds pleading. “I’ll let you dominate me. I’ll learn to dominate you. We’ll take turns. Whatever you want.”

  “Baby, this isn’t about me and you, this has nothing to do with what I share with you. My relationship with Adrian won’t take anything away from us.”

  She cries, tears leaking over her cheeks. “I don’t know that I can do this.”
/>   I nod. “I understand.” I hand her my car keys. “Drive my car to your place. I’ll pick it up in the morning.”

  She tries to not take them. “No, I can call a cab.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “Lexi, honest, it isn’t an inconvenience.”

  “Come with me,” she pleads.

  “I can’t, I have to talk to Adrian and Phelps, but I promise, I will be on your doorstep at dawn.”

  She tries to smile. “You’re going to run to my house, aren’t you?”

  “It isn’t that far.”

  “Are you going to have sex with Adrian tonight?”

  My mouth opens and closes. “Honestly, I just intend to talk to them tonight. It’s been a crazy day for them, and I’m just as worried about Bianca as they are. But even if I were to have sex with him, it has nothing to do with us.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  I kiss her forehead. “Then that’s going to be very sad news for me, because I think I’m falling in love with you and I’d sure hate to lose that opportunity.”

  “Oh, how fair was that?” she demands. “Do not play the love card on me!”

  I smile and back away.

  I keep backing away until I reach the door. “I’ll pick up my car in the morning.”

  WHEN I RETURN TO ADRIAN’S, Phelps is ready to goad me from the start. I sit on the big chair across from the sofa, and Adrian leans against the wall.

  Phelps asks, “So are you spending the night, boy toy?”

  I smile sweetly. “I think I am.

  Adrian shuffles his feet.

  “Oh, goody. Did you wear your Underoos again?”

  I snap my fingers. “Sorry to disappoint you, Phelps, I’m commando tonight, but if you want you can whip out your dick so we can compare sizes and settle this here and now.”