by Lauren Rowe
“You still sure you’re okay talking about this stuff?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Um. How exactly do you do this ‘Sure Thing’ technique? Is it complicated?”
I lick my lips and take a deep breath. Fuck. Telling Maddy all about this is gonna lead to nothing good, and I know it. No doubt about it, if I tell Maddy how I do this, she’s gonna ask me to do it to her before this road trip is through—and, God help me, when she asks me, I’m gonna say yes because I won’t be able to resist. Which means, of course, I’ll fuck her, too—because no woman can come over and over and then not beg for cock at some point. Which, of course, means telling Maddy about this will ultimately lead to me fucking Maddy (because I’m only human and when a woman begs for cock, I’m gonna give it to her). And, of course, when all this goes down, Maddy’s gonna love it and get attached to me and think there’s something between us I can’t deliver on—which will lead to her being pissed as hell and maybe even hurt afterwards. Which means Dax will string me up by my dick and balls because he’s a fucking psycho these days and I’ll rue the day I ever told Maddy the ins and outs of The Sure Thing in the first place.
I look at my watch. “Hey, maybe we should get back on the road, huh?”
Maddy sits up onto her elbow on the blanket and gazes down at me with blazing eyes. “Will you tell me how you do it?”
I take a long, steadying breath, my eyes locked on hers. “How about I tell you another time, Sunshine?” I whisper.
“When?”
“Another time.” My heart is pulsing in my ears. Motherfucker. Why am I doing this? If it weren’t for the fact that Maddy’s forbidden fruit, I wouldn’t even be talking about this shit with her. We’d be talking about the weather or her hobbies, hopes and dreams. Right?
“I want to know how you do it,” Maddy says softly. “No one’s ever done anything like that to me before.” She blushes.
Oh man. Here we go. She’s a kitten’s breath away from begging me to do it to her right here and now.
“I’ll tell you another time,” I say, my eyes still locked on hers, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“Why not now?”
“Because I... don’t... think it’s a good idea.”
Maddy blinks rapidly, breaking eye contact with me, and then takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she says, like she’s just come out of a trance.
There’s a long silence between us.
“Let’s hang here a little bit longer, just to be sure there’s no more traffic,” she says.
“Okay.”
We lie back down on the blanket and she puts her cheek on my shoulder again.
After a moment, she says something, pointing to the sky, but I’m too busy battling internal demons—forbidden-fruit-demons—to hear what she’s said.
Fuck. The truth is I want to tell Maddy about The Sure Thing because, yes, I want her to beg me to do it to her. I want to make her come over and over ’til she’s speaking in tongues; I wanna see her pretty brown eyes roll back into her head and feel her asshole clenching and releasing against my fingertip; I want her to beg me to fuck her. And then, by God, I wanna fuck her.
But, honestly, I’m not sure any of those impulses are real. I think it’s highly likely I’m just responding to the idea of stealing cookies outta the cookie jar.
“Um,” I say. I swallow hard. “What did you just say?”
“I said that one looks like a turtle,” she says, pointing at a distant cloud.
Oh man, now I can’t get the idea outta my head: I want to fuck her.
Shit. I gotta stop this. I’m doing this because Dax declared her ‘off-limits’ and she’s forbidden fruit.
“Yeah, a turtle with a raging hard-on,” I manage to say.
Maddy laughs. “He doesn’t have a hard-on; he’s just carrying a hoe because he’s on his way to his turtle garden.”
“A hoe?”
“Yeah. He’s gonna plant some sunflower seeds in his garden and he needs a hoe.”
“Only you would see a turtle with a hoe,” I say. “Are you insane, by any chance?”
“Only you would see a turtle with a hard-on,” she replies. “Are you Keane Morgan, by any chance?”
I shrug.
This is crazy. I don’t want Maddy, specifically. I just want what I can’t have. And that’s not fair to her. In fact, fucking Maddy when I know I just want to fuck the cookie I’m not allowed to have would be a supremely dickish thing to do.
And being a dick to Maddy isn’t on the menu. No fucking way.
“That’s what I don’t get,” Maddy says.
Oh, apparently, she’s been talking. “Huh?” I ask. “Sorry. I got distracted.”
“I asked how you protect yourself nowadays so you don’t get trapped by another nut job like that attorney-lady?” Maddy says.
“Oh. Um. Yeah. Well, like I say, first off, I don’t fuck clients. Ever. That’s the biggest thing. And second off, I’m with a really good agency now, so it doesn’t come up nearly as much. I make sure my agent tells every potential client the deal right up front if there’s even a whiff the client thinks she’s paying for laying.” I clear my throat. “And, um, third off, when I give lap dances at a private show, I have a firm ‘no touch’ rule. They can touch the abs and ass or whatever, but nothing that jiggles or hardens.”
Maddy’s eyes are locked with mine. Her expression is unreadable to me.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, pushing her hair away from her face.
If she were to lean forward ever so slightly, even an inch, I just might kiss her. But she doesn’t move forward, which is probably a good thing. In fact, she leans slightly back.
“I’m thinking you must have a lot of self-control,” she says.
My heart lurches into my throat. Is she reading my mind? “In what way?” I ask.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve met some attractive women at gigs, women you’ve wanted to have sex with.”
“Not anyone who was worth going back to Shit Town, USA for. If there’s a hot chick at a gig I have to forego, then I just tell myself there’ll be another hot chick tomorrow at a bar who’s fair game.”
“But don’t you sometimes get, you know, sexually aroused by the women you dance for?”
“No,” I say without hesitation.
“No?” She seems shocked. “Even if there’s a really attractive woman and you’re, I dunno, rubbing your crotch against her?”
I smirk. “I don’t know what you’re imagining I do during performances, but I don’t rub my dick against women like a cat rubbing against a scratching pole.”
“Well, jeez. I dunno. How the hell would I know that? I told you I’ve never seen a stripper in action.”
“I never even pop a woody when I’m working.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m not a dog. As hard as it might be to detect, I’ve got a brain. And when I’m working, I’m actually thinking about shit. Now don’t get me wrong—I have a total blast when I perform—I’m pumped up and turned on like crazy, just not in the way you’re thinking. I’m focused on delivering the fantasy, reading the room, making sure I’m pushing all the right buttons. I’m feeding off energy and getting jacked up by how much fun the women are having. Not to mention I’ve grown up a bit since the early days. Now, it’s not very often there’s a single woman at a gig I’d want to have sex with, anyway. I’m pretty selective about my fuckery nowadays. The Talented Mr. Ripley demands filet mignon.”
“I can’t even formulate a reply to that,” Maddy says.
A cool breeze kicks in and she snuggles her body closer to mine.
“It’s pretty simple,” I say. “I view my job as making every woman wanna fuck me—not actually fucking ’em. Plus, even if I were to meet a really fuckable woman at a gig these days, even if I were tempted to break my rule, I still wouldn’t do it because I promised my momma.”
Maddy sits up and looks down at my face, her features contorted with surprise. “You promised your mom you wouldn’t fuck wo
men at gigs? Holy hell, Keane. That had to be an interesting conversation.”
I chuckle. “Well, no, not in those exact words, for fuck’s sake. I believe the actual promise I made was: ‘I swear I’m not a gigolo, Mom.’”
“How in the heck did that conversation come about?”
“Oh man, it was horrible. About three months after I’d started stripping, my mom and dad found out what I’d been doing. So my mom sat me down and asked me point-blank, ‘Keaney, tell me the truth—are you a gigolo?’ Luckily, by the time she asked me that question, I hadn’t fucked anyone at a gig for quite some time, so I was able to look her square in the eye and swear on my life the job was legit and that I was good at it and making an okay living. So now I’ve gotta live up to my word.”
“You’re close with your mom?”
“Oh, yeah. With the whole fam. Four brothers and a sister, my brother-in-law, my baby niece—we’re all tight as ticks.”
“I met Kat and Josh at my sister’s birthday party. They’re both hysterically funny and shockingly gorgeous, just like you.”
I smirk to myself. “Maddy Milliken just told me I’m ‘shockingly gorgeous.’”
Maddy blushes.
I rub Maddy’s back for a moment, hugging her to me, smelling her hair, enjoying the warmth of her body against mine. Damn, Maddy’s hair smells good—like a garden of flowers. “Yeah, Josh fits right in with our family’s sense of humor,” I say. “Thank God Kat married a guy who can keep up, or else he woulda been eaten alive at Thanksgiving along with the turkey and mashed potatoes.”
“Do you wear cologne?” Maddy asks, out of nowhere.
“Just a splash. Enough to make every woman within spitting distance of me start sniffing, not enough to make ’em fling themselves at me uncontrollably. A guy’s gotta be able to walk down the sidewalk, you know.”
Maddy chuckles. “It’s nice.”
“You’re not alone in thinking that, baby doll. But thank you.”
Maddy stretches out like a cat and her entire body stiffens, and then softens, against mine. And, motherfucker, out of nowhere, my cock tingles. Again. Fuck. I gotta stop this shit. Why the hell am I toying with Maddy? Teasing her, tempting her, making her want me? I don’t want Maddy. I’m sure of it. I just want her to want me—that’s got to be it. But she’s not a woman at a job. She’s a sweet, adorable girl who isn’t used to guys like me—a girl I wouldn’t normally give a second glance to if she weren’t off-limits. Right? Hell, I don’t even know anymore. I’m all fucked up in the head, not knowing which way’s up or down.
“I’m surprised you never get a hard-on when you strip,” Maddy says. “I thought men get hard whether they want to or not, as long as they get certain kinds of stimulation. You rub it, it gets hard.”
“Well, shit, Maddy, no one is giving me a hand job while I perform, if that’s what you think.”
We both laugh.
“Okay, yeah, I get hard when I’m getting a hand job,” I say. “And, yes, I get hard when I’m thinking about fucking a woman I actually wanna fuck. But I don’t get hard when I’m thinking about getting paid, son.”
“Well, what the hell do I know?” Maddy says. “I told you I’ve never seen a stripper.”
“Dude, I dance. Shake my ass. Give lap dances. Do some smoove mooves. I’m not standing there rubbing against anyone’s thigh for long enough to give myself an involuntary hard-on.” She’s still chuckling and I join her. “I suppose in theory I could give myself a woody if I rubbed up against the trunk of a tree for long enough, but that’s not at all what I do when I perform. It’s a show. Actually, some of my moves take a lot of concentration and skill.”
“Well, gosh, I didn’t mean to offend you,” she says.
“Well, you did. I’m horribly offended. Ain’t no time for popping woodies when you’re doing a handstand, baby.”
Maddy looks up from my shoulder, obviously surprised. “You do handstands?”
“Hell yeah. I do all kinds of cool stuff.”
“Would that be ‘cool’ as in k-e-w-l?”
“Heck yeah.”
“Show me.” She sits up, a look of pure excitement on her face.
“Here?” I look at around at the park. “I can’t do my smoove stripper mooves for you at a park. There’s a kid right over there flying a kite.”
“Well, then, do one of your G-rated smoove mooves. You got any of those?”
I look into her big, brown eyes and, goddammit, I can’t resist her.
“Fine. I’ll show you a little something-something. But be warned, you’re gonna become completely obsessed with me after I do it.”
“Waiver signed.” She makes a motion in the sky like she’s signing something.
“Okay.” I leap up onto the grass next to our blanket, rub my hands together, and go into a full handstand, eliciting whoops and wild applause from Maddy. And then, just because I’m a total show-off and can’t help myself, I walk on my hands for a bit like a circus performer until I feel a cool breeze wafting across my abs—which, of course, tells me my shirt has ridden up toward my chin.
“Whoa, I’m getting the full show here, Ball Peen Hammer,” Maddy yells. “Take it off, baby!”
“Don’t make me laugh,” I breathe, my muscles straining. Damn, this is already making my left elbow hurt. This used to be a whole lot easier before my surgery a year and a half ago.
“Sorry,” Maddy says. “Take it off, baby,” she whispers, obviously intending to toss me a toned-down version of her prior catcall—but she’s only made me laugh even more.
I walk on my hands for a few more seconds, and once I’m sure I’ve given Maddy another long gander at my abs, I become completely still atop my hands, slowly shift my body weight above my right arm, and lift my left arm off the ground a few inches.
“Oh my effing God!” Maddy shouts. She claps uproariously. “Amazing.”
I lower my left arm back to the ground, center my body weight again, and easily pop back up to my feet.
“Incredible,” Maddy says, applauding, her face on fire. “You’re... seriously... wow. You’re amazing, Keane. If stripping doesn’t work out for you, you should join the circus.”
I shrug like it ain’t no thang and flash her my dimples.
Maddy’s face is glowing. Oh man, I betcha if I stuck my fingers deep inside her and touched that magic spot just right, she’d go off against my fingers like a bottle rocket. Not that I’d ever do that, seeing as how she’s nothing but my honorary little sister and I’ve promised I won’t fuck her. But, still—I bet she would. Oh, shit. I gotta stop this. Sisters don’t have tits. And I certainly don’t stick my fingers deep inside them. I feel like slapping the shit out of myself. Stop this shit right now, Peen.
“You’re insanely fit,” Maddy chirps, obviously oblivious to the tug-of-war happening inside my head. “The balance that must take—the strength. Wow, wow, wow. You’re a monkey.”
“Thanks,” I say smoothly. “Sweet of you to say.” I level her with my best smolder and place my palm on my stomach and run my hand over my abs, subtly lifting my T-shirt as I do. “This little R&R sesh has been a real pleasure, hasn’t it, Maddy?”
“Absolutely,” Maddy chirps out, her Disney-princess tone not even in the ballpark with mine. “So glad we weren’t sitting in traffic this whole time. That was a grand stroke of genius, Mr. Monkey Man. So, you ready to hit the road again? I bet that traffic jam is finito by now.”
What. The. Fuck? Is she even human? I was doing my best smolder just now. I was lifting up my shirt and giving her another peek at my abs—and touching them suggestively, too. And doing all that while sending a subliminal message to the pleasure-center in Maddy’s brain via Federal Express. And she’s acting like we’ve been talking about the weather?
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s get going.”
“Cool,” Maddy says brightly. She hops off the blanket, grabs it off the ground, and begins shaking it with gusto to get leaves and grass off its underside.
“Wow, if those are your G-rated smoove mooves, I can only imagine how smoove your R-rated mooves are,” she says. “No wonder the pickles hurl themselves at you.”
Did I just fall into some sort of psychedelic rabbit hole? Why isn’t Maddy falling all over me? She should be doing that thing she supposedly does with guys she wants to bone—that thing she told me about where she can’t string two coherent words together when she sees a hot guy. Where the fuck is that Maddy?
Maddy snorts again as she folds up the blanket. “And here I thought that hot bod of yours was only good for bonin’ the fuck outta pickles and puppets,” she says. “Looks like you’re multi-talented after all, Ball Peen Hammer.” She looks at me and smiles. “You ready to roll, sugar lips? I saw a restroom on the far end of the park. I’m just gonna hit that before we go.”
“Uh. Great.”
“Coolio,” Maddy chirps happily. “Let’s roll.”
Chapter 20
Maddy
I turn up the radio as I drive at full speed down the freeway, the traffic from earlier in the day all cleared up. I look over at Keane. He’s looking out the passenger window, quiet as a mouse. In fact, he’s been unusually quiet since we left the park.
I turn up the music, intending to signal to Keane it’s fine with me if we don’t talk for a bit. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing Keane needs more quiet time than the average person. From my experience, it always seems like people with the most charisma are the ones who, on the flipside, need the most downtime. At least, that’s the way it was with my first boyfriend, Justin. He had the biggest personality of anyone, and always needed the most downtime, too.
The song on the radio ends and a new song—“Trip Switch” by Nothing But Thieves— begins, immediately snapping Keane out of his quiet mood.
“Oh my shitake mushrooms,” Keane says, sitting up in his car seat and turning up the volume on the radio to full-blast. “I love this song.” He begins singing along and, instantly, his high-powered charisma re-enters his body.
When the song ends and is followed by a mellow love song—“Like Real People Do,” by Hozier—Keane turns the radio down and settles into his seat again.