by JA Huss
He shakes his head as he smiles. I walk past my old penthouse door and keep going, straight to the one at the end of the hallway.
“The roof?” he asks, his eyebrows up.
“Just wait, Fletcher.” We go through the door and walk up the flight of stairs that leads outside.
I stop and look at him for a second, my hand on the knob, ready to show him what I’ve done. Somehow the fight is over. It’s like we needed to say all that stuff back on the beach in order to move forward and now that it’s out in the open, everything feels… right.
I open the door and step aside, letting him get a good look at what’s beyond.
“Holy shit, princess. You turned my rooftop into the royal gardens.”
“Do you like it?” I ask, looking at my recently completed project with his eyes for a moment. The raised beds are filled with flowers and shrubs. The ground has been paved with stones, and little bits of grass and moss peek through the edges, like it’s been growing this way for a hundred years. White lights are strung around the perimeter, and the glow is just enough to give it a special ambiance that mixes with the fading sunset.
“I love it,” he says, taking it in as his gaze wanders from garden bed to garden bed.
“I just had the trees planted last week. In fact, I just moved up here from my old room a few days ago. And look what I did to the garden shed, Fletch.”
I realize when I say his name that we are true friends now. These last few minutes are new and old in all the right ways. He feels like a part of me. He feels like he’s been with me this whole time. He feels… real.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The wonder and happiness in her face settles my nerves and calms me down. I have never been so filled with apprehension going to meet a girl as I was tonight. Everything raced through my mind as I pulled up to the valet. All the possibilities left hanging between us. All the ways I could fuck it up. Just how easy it would be to lose this girl and how I’d feel if that happened.
It wasn’t going to happen, I decided. I wouldn’t let it.
So when she came up to me downstairs and let me take her hand, it felt right. Like every decision that led to this moment was right.
She pulls me along towards what used to be the shed. But now it’s bigger. The dingy old cinderblock bricks have been painted white. The windows have shutters and flower boxes spilling over with color.
She opens the door to the new and improved garden shed and steps back to let me walk in first. It’s not big. Just a room, really. With a small kitchen where the old potting bench used to be and a king-size bed where I laid her down on the floor and ate her pussy until she came.
I shoot her a sidelong look. “How many men have you fucked in this bed?”
She laughs, getting my joke. “None, you sicko. I make them stand.”
I walk forward, hungry for her, and take her face in my hands so I can kiss her on the lips and whisper in her mouth. “You get me?”
“I get you, Fletcher,” she whispers back. “I do. Everything about you is sexy. But not the way you think. You’re sexy on the inside. Your heart is big, and your brain is smart.”
“I’m sorry, Tiffy,” I say, pulling back a little. “I was guilty of everything I accused you of.”
“We always wanted the same things, Fletcher. We were just trying to get them the wrong way.”
It makes sense, I realize. She thought she needed Cole to provide for her because her mother taught her to want that. And I wanted to take care of Sam and Shelly to prove I was a better man than my brother. “It’s strange how that happens.”
“We’re gonna miss the show,” Tiffy says, still kissing me.
“This is the show, sexy. The only one that matters.” I pull back and start unbuttoning my shirt.
Her eyes are trained on these small movements immediately. Her fingertips flutter down to the hem of her dress and begin to lift it up. She shows me a bit of leg as I continue to ease the buttons of my shirt free. When I get to the last one and shrug it off, she turns around and swipes her long dark hair off the nape of her neck.
I reach for the zipper and slide it down as she peeks at me over her shoulder. “Keep going,” I whisper. “Please don’t stop now.”
Tiffy grins as she looks down at my pants, and then my fingertips are on my belt buckle. It jingles as I free the leather strap, and I unbutton my jeans.
She sucks in a little air through her teeth and turns back to face me, allowing one strap of her pretty dress to fall over her shoulder. She chews on her lip a little and I’m about to lose my mind as her tease overtakes me.
I drag my own zipper down and fist my cock for a moment. Her breasts rise and fall underneath the thin fabric as her breathing hitches. She slips one arm out of her dress, then the other, so that it falls to the curve of her hip. Just the way it did last summer when she was driving me mad with desire.
My dick is already hard. Almost throbbing from the anticipation of seeing her body again.
But she’s slow and deliberate as she wiggles just enough to make the dress fall to the floor with a whoosh of air that wafts up, bringing the scent of her desire with it.
I drag my cock from the confines of my boxer briefs just as she lowers herself to the floor on her knees.
“Fuck, Tiffy. I think you’ve been practicing.”
“No need to practice, Fletch.” She grabs my hard length and gives me a squeeze. “I learned from the best.” And then she wraps her mouth around me and I moan.
Her sucking starts slow, but increases in intensity as my head falls back and I fist her hair, pushing her towards me. Urging her on. Wanting more with each passing second. I pull away to stop myself from coming down her throat in a rush.
“I want more,” I whisper. “I want to make this last all fucking night.” So I take her hand and guide her up off her knees so I can kiss her mouth. “Finish what you started,” I say in a gruff voice.
She places both palms on my chest and pushes me back until I bump into the bed and sit down. She straddles my lap, our eyes locked together. “You want me to tease it out of you?” she laughs.
“More than anything else in this world, Tiffy.”
She smiles knowingly. The shy girl from last summer has found her stride. She reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra, letting it fall forward just a little bit, just enough to give me a peek at her full breasts as they drape against her ribs.
I moan again. “Fuck.”
She slides the straps down her arms until I have a full view, and lets the bra fall into my lap. I reach for her, cupping her soft breasts, and this time she moans. I ease my face down to her nipple and take one in my mouth, sucking on her gently.
Her hands wrap around my head, fisting my hair in encouragement. I reach behind her ass and stand up, taking her with me. And then I toss her playfully down on the bed and watch her tits bounce.
“I really want you,” I say.
“Please,” she whispers back. “Take me.”
I kick off my shoes, drag my pants and boxer briefs down in one swift movement, and then kick them aside as I reach for her panties. She lifts her hips to give me access, and those panties go flying off over my shoulder.
Her legs come up, the shyness plastered across her face once more. And I die for that. Just die. I hike her knees up to her face and press my mouth to her pussy, letting my tongue swirl around her clit until she’s wriggling beneath me.
But I’m paying close attention to her. I monitor her moans and squeals. The way her legs clamp against my neck when it gets intense. The way she arches her back when I suck on her clit and stick my fingers inside her.
And just when I know she will explode, I stop.
“No,” she moans, so sorrowfully I almost feel guilty.
“I want to come with you this time, Tiffy.” I grab a condom out of my wallet and roll it onto my cock. She watches me, her attention one hundred percent on what’s coming next.
Us.
We’re co
ming next.
I ease into her, filling her up, and she clenches against me. Squeezing my shaft with her muscles and letting me know she’s so very, very close.
Us.
That’s the next chapter in our story.
Us.
I don’t fuck her. I love her. I love her hard and soft. Far longer than I should be able to with the heat of our desire and the rising intensity.
I savor every moment until we peak together and let out months of regrets, filling ourselves back up with a lifetime of possibilities.
We miss the show.
But no one cares.
We are right where we are supposed to be.
Epilogue
One Year Later
“Life is a game and everyone’s a player. Whether you believe it or not, the only thing that matters is the score.”
I’m so excited, I have to take deep breaths as we watch the season one premiere of Sexy in the Landslide bar. Everyone is here. Claudio and Steve. Samantha and my piece-of-shit brother, Walker, who I am learning to like again, even if it’s just in small in increments. And, of course, the whole staff of the hotel and the cast of our revamped Mountain Men show.
When I finally forced myself to leave Tiffy’s new and improved penthouse, I went back to LA to negotiate the terms of the contract. Since the screenplay was based on my experiences as a male stripper here at the hotel, I wanted the show to be true to how I wrote it. So I offered up the Landslide as the location.
It was hardly a negotiation, since the studio thought it was a great idea. And it kept me close to home while we were shooting.
The hotel has been balls to the wall since the opening night of Mountain Men 2. The show was off-the-charts popular, and we have a franchise in the making with a contract being negotiated for Vegas and a traveling show that will start touring in a few months.
Her dad would be proud. She manages the charities she left his billions to in addition to the hotel. And me. She manages me too.
I chuckle and have to hide a smile so she doesn’t think I’m up to something when she drags her eyes from the TV and looks over at me. God, that girl. She’s everything to me.
We got married on Valentine’s Day on the beach just outside. It was my idea. Who knew I was such a romantic? But I’m fooling myself. I’ve always known it. And I guess that’s why I was so pissed off when Walker left Samantha when she got pregnant. Sam hasn’t quite forgiven him for that either, but she’s trying. He’s trying too. And as Tiffy often reminds me, everyone makes mistakes, so I cut him some slack and let him find his way forward with the family he regrets leaving behind.
Tiff and I found out we’re expecting our first baby last week. The first of many, I hope. So in a few months life will be… I have to stop and catch my breath, that’s how fabulous life will be. I loved every minute when I was helping Samantha bring up Shelly, so I can only imagine that joy will overwhelm me once my own little person comes into this world.
When I made the decision to sell the house it felt like a failure. For about… five hours. Because that’s the amount of time that went by until I met Tiffy at the show that night. And that meeting has changed my perspective on everything.
Each of us gets a life and each of us gets to live it the way we want. I wasn’t in debt to my granddad’s wishes any more than Tiffy was to her mother’s. We do our best and no one has a right to ask us for more. And who knows, maybe one day that house will be up for sale again and I’ll be in a position to take it back.
But I’m not waiting around for it.
Because I was right. Life is a game.
And there are many ways to win it.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
END OF BOOK SHIT
Welcome to the End Of Book Shit (we call them the EOBS for short). This is where I get to say whatever I want about the book. In the Merc Book (Meet Me In The Dark) I had a lot of explaining to do (so dark, that shit scared me.) In 321 I had a very cool back story. Like, that EOBS was so fucking epic, it’s going to be narrated by me in the audiobook. In Social Media I really bitched up a storm about serials. And pricing of them. Those were epic as well. LOL. I pissed off a lot of people with those I bet. ;) But you know what they say, if you can’t take the heat…
So this book is special to me in two ways.
First the concept. I was at the Cleveland Author Event in April this year (Yay – that signing is one of the best out there!) and a few members of my Street Team were with me and one of them got us all tickets to go see Thunder Down Under (Thanks, Bella!) And that show barely started when my assistant, Jana, and I looked at each other and said, “We need a book!”
It’s not the strippers. OK, yeah, it is. But the whole show was just fun. They took this grandma up on stage and stuck her hand down their pants, and grandma giggled like she was a teenager. She got her picture taken and had a great time. They had brides-to-be on stage. They had the girls who did just about anything to get a guy’s attention practically dancing on tables. I bet there really are girls who go to these male revue shows for a chance to go home with a stripper like Fletcher. And I bet there really are guys like Fletcher who look for a new possibility every time he goes on stage.
But you know, when I’m looking for a story I see past what’s on the outside and try to find what’s on the inside. And I guess if Fletcher Novak has a motto, that’s it.
Sexy is on the inside.
So I wanted to bring that out in the characters. I really wanted to get the perspective of a pretty boy in a world where pretty boys seem to rule. And I really wanted to present you with the “perfect” heroine like Tiffy. Because that’s how we see people. We see the outside. It takes a really long time to get to know someone, and in the world of social media that’s hard to do. We get snippets of this and that but you never really know someone until to take the time to figure them out.
That’s all I set out to do in Sexy. Just delve a little deeper into the lives of these two people who appear to have it all on the outside but on the inside, are just like everyone else. Trying to play their way through a game with no rulebook.
I made this a fun book. No killing in this one. No mind-bending twists. Just fun. I don’t write a lot of those. This is the first, actually. LOL. The Social Media series was my first attempt at “just fun” and if you’ve read it, I got it all twisted up pretty fast. So hopefully this was an easy read that made you smile. I had fun writing it and I read it last night after the edits came back and I caught myself laughing and getting a little embarrassed for Tiffy. I hope you did too. ;) That’s just fun shit.
I have met so many great people in this business and every day I’m stunned and grateful that I have managed to claw my way into this profession. I’m actually a scientist by training and I started writing science textbooks for homeschool parents back in 2007. I did that for several years and was happy and successful. But then I got the idea in my head that I could write science fiction and that’s how all this started. I can’t say I’ve never wanted to be a writer, I did think about it when I was a growing up, but nothing serious.
I have always liked to read and I was addicted to The Black Stallion until well into my teens. I aspired to be a horse trainer, an astronaut, and a painter. And maybe I’m not really all those things, but I’ve been something close in one book or another. In Junco I got to go into space and meet aliens. I got to be an assassin (several times over), a model, a biker, a con man, an actor, and so many other very cool things. Because when I write books I get to be each and every character. So it was just plain fun to be Tiffy and Fletcher.
The second reason this book is so special is a little more personal and I’m not going into any details, but Tiffy and Claudio are real. Tiffany (Tiffy) is part of my Street Team and she came to see me at the Atlantic City Signing this past June and brought her BFF, Claudio. I have such admiration for her and her spirit. (Tiffany, bitch you got this!) And I love ya, chick. I do. I’m getting all sappy just thinking about you right now. And Claudio
is perfect. I’m so glad you brought him to meet me. You two made my day, for reals. Made my day.
And I just loved Claudio’s name so much, I needed a character. So I made Tiffy & Claudio BFF’s in the book too. So this book is dedicated to the real life Tiffy and Claudio. May you two bitches forever find fun!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
My Street Team is filled with some of my best friends these days, and I count Katie as one of them, so I gave her a character in this book too. She is so crazy, and if you have not met her in my Shrike Bikes fan group on Facebook, you are missing out. But she is crazy in the sweetest and most good-hearted way. Thanks for your help, Katie. You’re so damn fun and I think you’re a lot like the Katie in this book—beautiful inside and out.
And of course I owe a lot to Jana, my assistant. Thank you for always being one step ahead of me. I know that makes you feel smug, but fuck it. You earned it.
If you enjoyed Sexy please consider leaving me a review. I’d really appreciate it. They mean so much to me and my success as an Indie Author depends on word of mouth feedback from readers and fans like you.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
So what is next for me…? I’m doing four major projects the rest of this year. First, a Junco spin-off that introduces Gideon’s story after all that shit that happened in the final book, Return. There will be a novella in a boxed set called Red Hot Magic that will release in late October. It will be 99 cents for the boxed set, and I will not release the novella outside of that set because it’s the first part of a new full-length book (no cliffy in the novella though). The full-length Gideon book will release end of January 2016.
Second, I have a brand new biker romance series and book one will release on December 2, 2015. That one is super secret (and not like any other biker book you’ve ever read, trust me!) but look for a cover reveal in October. It’s the first standalone (yes, 100% standalone) book in a four book series (all four are standalones) that will complete by summer 2016.