He swung me around. “You sound so confident. Care to make it interesting?”
“Any more interesting than it already is?” I countered.
“I guess you have a point,” he conceded with a chuckle. “But I still think I could make you fall in love with me.”
“Gee,” I said, completely in character. “And I thought I already was.”
It made him laugh. “Touché,” he said before he kissed me on the lips. He deepened the kiss, and I responded. His eyes were cloudy as he straightened. “So tell me, OGWO. What am I thinking now?”
He kept me flush against his body, which I could feel spark to life. “You’re thinking that you haven’t fucked anyone in a few months, and maybe I’ll do.” His eyes met mine. “But I won’t do. Not for one million dollars.”
I smiled and exited the dance, walking slowly towards the bar where Clem now chatted up someone I didn’t recognize.
He stood tall and lithe, like many of the men who frequented FFF. He had model good looks, with styled light brown hair, kissed blond in spots by the sun, which fell over mischievous, incandescent hazel eyes. He wore his beard tight and right, just enough to cradle his strong jaw. Clothes melded to his physique, and I could already tell that Clem was a big fan.
She brightened as she saw me approach. “Carly, I have someone I want you to meet.”
The man in question stood to his full height and turned to me with a familiar smirk. I had seen him somewhere before, though I wrestled with my memory to place him. Finally it clicked a half a second before she said, “This is Caz Bixby, my new boss.”
Caz Bixby—notorious playboy and known gigolo, one who had taken pop culture by storm when he outed one of his more notable clients and dismantled an entire election campaign airing her dirty laundry. He was rewarded with a TV show of his own, and my guess was that was where Clem had been keeping herself lately.
OGWO was once again as right as rain.
“Carly,” he crooned as he took my hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I’ve heard so much about you. And not just from Clementine. You get any more press and they’ll have to give you a show.”
I laughed. “God forbid.”
He grinned. “Is that an accent I detect?”
“Maybe a little,” I replied in good humor. He was fun, and he was almost painfully good looking. It wasn’t a bad combo. “Guess where and I’ll buy you a shot.”
“Ooo, a challenge,” he said as he leaned back to inspect me. “Talk dirty to me.”
I leaned forward. “Mud. Soot. Manure. Oil.”
He clapped one hand on the bar. “Say no more. You are from the great state of Tejas, am I right?”
“Give that man a silver dollar,” I nodded as I held up my finger to order a shot from Clem.
“Make it two,” he added before turning back to me. “You’ve got to join me in a Valentine’s Day toast.”
I shook my head. “Can’t. Pain meds,” I said with a pout.
“Oh, yeah.” He glanced at my foot. “How’s the bum foot?”
“Healing,” I said. “I’m starting physical therapy next week.”
He smiled wide. “If you ever need a trainer…,” he said, letting his offer trail off.
“And here I thought you were way too busy for something like that.”
He laughed. “For one of Clem’s friends, I could make an exception.” His eyes glittered as they ran over me. “Especially for a pretty one.”
“Actually,” Clem said as she leaned across the bar, delivering the shots, “Carly is taken.”
He glanced out onto the dance floor, where Eli now danced with Lisa and Daisy. “Yeah. I heard.” His eyes met mine. In an instant, I feared he could easily read all those things I would never say. I could say nothing as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a black card with a gold lettering embossed on it. He handed it to me. “Offer still stands, though. Even if you need to talk. I know instant fame can be tough.”
I nodded and took the card, placing it in my clutch.
He continued to study me with that thoughtful stare. “Care to dance?” he offered and I shook my head.
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“Why not? He’s having a good time,” he added, nodding once again to the dance floor. There Eli was sandwiched in between my two friends, who were having a sexy good time grinding against a famous, sexy crooner. “Come on,” Caz urged. “I really want to dance and my favorite girl is behind the bar.” I still hemmed and hawed, so he added, “Don’t you want to show a poor, lonely guy some of that southern hospitality?”
I looked up into those playful hazel eyes. I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay.”
He pulled me towards the dance floor, where Lola had just started playing “More Than a Mouthful.” Caz plastered me against his hard body. “I love this song,” he grinned, and I knew in an instant he was completely incorrigible. “So tell me what it’s like to fall in love under a microscope,” he said.
“You should know,” I countered. “You’re more famous than I am.”
He laughed. “I don’t do love, sweets. I do sex and lots of it.”
The way his body moved against me left no room for argument about that.
“Then you and Clem are perfect for each other,” I teased.
He laughed again. “Clem is a hoot. And a riot in the sack.”
My eyes widened. “You slept with her?” That didn’t sound like Clem at all. Normally she never mixed business with pleasure.
“I sleep with everyone,” he grinned, unabashed. “Haven’t you heard?”
My eyes narrowed. “Oh. So you’re a liar.”
He leaned forward with that cheeky grin. “Takes one to know one.” I gasped as I realized what was happening. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to bust you. But if you want to sell this relationship, you’re going to have to go for broke, baby doll. I can smell the neglect all over you. You haven’t been properly fucked in,” he paused to lean closer still and peer into my face, “four months at least.”
I gasped at how on the nose he was. Who the fuck was this guy?
“If you ever need help in that department, I’m available for that too. No one sells a lie better than Caz Bixby. Ask anyone.”
“Thanks,” I muttered as I tried to turn away, but he pulled me back.
“Don’t get all sore. Come on. Let’s dance,” he added softly as he pulled me closer.
Just then another man’s hand landed on my arm. It was Eli, and he wasn’t happy. “Is this jerk giving you a hard time, babe?”
Always in character, I thought. Caz, unfortunately, ran with it.
“Not yet, but I’m trying,” he added with that self-satisfied smirk that rivaled Eli’s.
“She’s with me,” Eli practically growled at him.
Undaunted, Caz shot back, “Sorry, man, it was hard to tell, considering you were dancing with other girls and all.”
Eli’s glare narrowed to pinpoints. “Who are you?”
Caz reached out his hand. “Caz Bixby. Clem works for my show.”
I could see Eli quickly process the data. “I see.”
“Clem was working the bar so I asked Carly here for a dance. Figured no harm, no foul, right? I mean it’s Valentine’s Day. All the pretty girls deserve a dance on Valentine’s Day.”
“You’re so right,” Eli said as he pulled me to his side. “Carly’s dance card is full. But I’m sure you’ll find another.”
“I always do,” Caz said. His eyes returned to me. “They all come to Caz eventually,” he grinned as he bowed, then disappeared into the crowd.
“What a prick,” Eli muttered, which made me laugh. “What’s so funny?”
“I would think you guys have a lot in common,” I shrugged.
His gaze fell over me. “We have one thing in common, it would seem.”
“Please,” I dismissed. “It was just a dance.”
“Tell that to the flush in your cheek,” he hissed before he dragged me bac
k to the dance floor.
I opened my mouth to say something, but it was lost the second his mouth covered mine. Though the music wasn’t slow, we barely swayed as he kissed me for the whole entire club to see. He kissed me slow, almost hypnotically, his lips grazing mine as his tongue ghosted behind, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. His hands tangled in my hair as he pulled me closer, as if inhaling me like I was the most expensive, intoxicating drink on the menu.
At first I was too surprised to respond, but finally I allowed my arms to slip around his neck. I knew he wanted a spectacle, and this was part of what he was paying me to do. In the whole scheme of things, it wasn’t very much. We’d kissed plenty by now, so it was old hat by Day 33.
Maybe that was the point. He was clearly trying to get a reaction out of me, and I knew it was my duty to respond, for the camera phones around us if nothing else. I kissed him back because I was supposed to, and I acted like I wanted it just because that was part of the deal. It had to be, otherwise we’d be doing all of this for nothing.
Caz’s words drifted in and out of my ear.
“If you want to sell this relationship, you’re going to have to go for broke, baby doll. I can smell the neglect all over you.”
It made my response way more ardent than normal. It was true; I hadn’t really dated in months. It was true that flirting with someone like Caz got the juices flowing a little bit. And, sadly, annoyingly, frustratingly, it was true that I was now coupled with one of the sexiest men in music. The body, the hair, the swagger… he had it all. That meant, to the world all around us at least, I had it all.
I knew that it was up to me to act like it.
When I cupped Eli’s notable derriere in both hands, he groaned against me. “Take me home, Carly,” he whispered.
I nodded, and allowed him to rush me from the dance floor. He shielded me from the crowd as we exited the club. His hands and lips were everywhere as we waited for the valet, which sold our show to everyone watching that we couldn’t wait to get home so we could begin our Valentine’s Day celebration in earnest.
I guess I sold it a little too well, because the minute we got into the limo, secured behind the tinted windows, it surprised Eli that I pulled away when he reached for yet another kiss. Instead I poured some champagne, because at this point I needed something a little stronger than pomegranate juice and soda. I handed him a glass. “Our first show. I’d say it was a smashing success.”
I tapped my plastic glass on his before I tipped it and chugged all the effervescent liquid, avoiding his cloudy, darkening gaze as I did so.
All I needed from this Valentine’s Day was a warm bed, some pain killers and nice, uninterrupted sleep. I scooted to my corner of the car and focused on the traffic passing by. It was like I had flipped a switch, which left my date for the evening a little blindsided. “Is this about that guy?” he wanted to know.
I just chuckled. “No. It isn’t about him.”
“Is this because I danced with the girls?”
I turned to him. “You really think I’m jealous?”
“I don’t know what you are,” he murmured as he watched me from where he was slouched in the corner of the limo. “One minute you tell me you hate me. The next you kiss me like you’re going to take me home and fuck my brains out.”
“Isn’t that what you pay me for?” I countered.
“I guess I do,” he muttered before he drained his own glass of booze. He said nothing else until we arrived at the house.
The driver helped me out of the car, and I turned back, expecting Eli would follow behind. Instead he stayed plastered to that corner of the car. “You coming?” I asked.
Those sharp blue eyes caught mine. “Not yet.”
He shut the door and, after an awkward moment, the driver discreetly walked back around to climb in, so that Eli could head to parts unknown.
CHAPTER TEN
I couldn’t tell you why it was so hard for me to get to sleep that night, even after I had taken my pain pills. I tossed. I turned. I ended up pulling every sharp corner from the crisply made bed, and dumped any extra pillow on the floor beside it. All the commotion drove poor Beau Jangles from the room entirely, though he had long come to share the bed with the both of us. Finally I gave up and hobbled on down to the media room, to overdose on schmaltzy Valentine’s Day programming that included every single romantic movie known to modern cinema.
I didn’t make it back to bed until nearly four o’clock in the morning, where I promptly fell into a fitful sleep that included patchwork dreams induced by the narcotic medication. I dreamt that my relationship with Eli wasn’t fake. Worse, I dreamed that the evening didn’t end with some butt-grabbing at the bar.
Yet, oddly, the night still ended with his leaving to parts unknown and staying out all night. Only in my dream it had crushed me.
I was in and out of sleep until daybreak, when Eli finally dragged back in. I was awake when he staggered into the bedroom, reeking of booze, cigarettes and a woman’s cologne. It was a pungent attack on the senses as he fell onto his side of the bed in a drunken, half-dressed stupor, ignoring me like I wasn’t even there.
I glared at him as he teetered on the edge of passing out completely. He wore a dopey fucking smile on his face that indicated only one of us in this farce of a relationship had gone without this Valentine’s Day.
I got so mad that I shoved him right off the bed. He landed with a thud, chuckling as he did so.
It was that last little part that infuriated me further.
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
“My problem? You come home stinking of booze and other women, climb into bed with me like it’s nothing, and have the nerve to ask me that?”
He leaned on the bed, wearing that self-satisfied smirk I swore one day I’d remove with a jackhammer. “Why, lamby love. Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
I snorted in derision. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s a matter of respect.”
He shrugged. “If I was getting some action at home, maybe I wouldn’t need to go prowling the streets like an alley cat, now would I?”
I glared at him. “Seriously? You’re going to blame me for your lack of human decency?”
He shrugged as he pulled himself back on the bed. “I blame you for a lot of things, Carly Reynolds. That is not one of them.”
I was aghast. “Blame me? For what?”
He stretched out on the bed. “For how hard you’re making everything. We could be having a perfectly nice time, but you want to make everything some goddamned battle. Which is stupid considering we both know you’re going to give it up to me before this year is over anyway.”
“Fuck you,” I hissed.
He began unbutton his shirt. “Anytime, sweetheart. Although it’s been quite an active night already. You may have to give me a few minutes. I tell you what. You get started, and I’ll jump in.”
Again I shoved him right off the bed. Again he landed with a thud and more laughter. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
“You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” I shot back.
He climbed back on the bed, crawling on his hands and knees until he was poised over me. “Think your new little fuck buddy for hire is any different?”
“You’re such a pig,” I muttered, pushing him away. He, however, was undaunted, positioning himself over me.
“Tell me the truth. If I go through your phone, is there a call to the great Caz Bixby, to ride to your rescue with multiple orgasms, just to make it a little more bearable that I’m out fucking someone else?” His eyes traveled over my body. “It could have been you. Just saying.”
I shoved him again. “Get off of me!”
He laughed as he complied. “Wow, I did hit a nerve. That means I must be right.”
He pulled himself off of the bed, glancing around until he spotted my clutch purse on the dresser. He sent me a grin before he went for it. I practically tackled him mid-air, aching ankle and all.
; It didn’t matter. He was stronger than me, even while stone-faced drunk. He held the purse out of my reach as he searched for my phone. Instead, he found Caz’s distinctive black card, which he waved in his hand victoriously. “Would you look at that? Lady Chatterley takes a lover.”
“Not yet,” I spat. “But I might need to.” I spun away from him. “For your information he saw right through our phony baloney relationship. He could tell just by looking at me there was nothing between us.”
“I did offer,” Eli noted before he landed back on the bed with a bounce. “Not my fault you want to play hard to get.”
Hard to get?? Hard to get?!
“Nothing is ever your fault, is it, Eli?”
“Not usually,” he commented, even more annoyingly flippant than usual.
“I’m not playing hard to get. I don’t like you. I find you repugnant and vile. The last thing I want to do—ever—is sleep with you. The list goes root canal,” I said, using my hand to indicate a lower ranking option, “mud wrestling with Ron Jeremy,” I said, moving my hand a little higher, “and fucking you,” I concluded, lifting my hand way up high over my head.
“Keep telling yourself that, darlin’,” he quipped. “But I was there when we kissed. You’ve got a hunger, one that your good-time gigolo won’t be able to satisfy. And you know it. That’s why you’re so mad. You hate me, but you still want to fuck me. What’s a good time girl to do?”
“It’s called acting,” I gritted between clenched teeth.
“You’re not that good of an actress,” he shot back before laying back on the pillows. “There’s no faking it with me, babe. You’ll see,” he promised. He was snoring within seconds.
The next morning he found me in the kitchen, putting different items into a blender—including some of the sardines that he kept on hand to spoil Beau Jangles.
He made an instant face. “What the fuck are you making?”
“You were pretty wasted when you got home this morning,” I shrugged, cracking an egg into the mix. “I figured you might need a little pick-me-up, Texas style.” I added some liberal shots of hot sauce.
He grimaced. “No thanks.” Then he cradled his head, which I knew had to be pounding. I hit the button on the blender to mix all the ingredients together. He held his head in both hands.
Glitter on the Web Page 13