Wrapped Around My Finger

by Kristen Strassel

  Jagger shook his head. “How do you listen to music? Do you have an iPod dock?”

  “I do some epic karaoke when I drive, but I usually don’t listen to it in the house.” It hurt my heart to admit that.

  “Really? You don’t listen to music when you work? I’m way more creative if I have something in the background.”

  “I never tried it.” All I had was my laptop. The sound quality sucked, but it didn’t matter. “I miss my boom box and my towers of tapes and CDs. Music used to be an event, and now I’ve kind of forgotten about it.”

  “Make it an event again.” Jagger pulled his laptop out of his bag. I watched over his shoulder as he put together a playlist from his collection. The image of him listening to salsa music on a hot Miami night as he worked on his photos made my pussy throb. Every time I thought this man couldn’t get any sexier he proved me wrong. “I’ll load these songs on your computer if you promise you’ll think of me when you listen to them.”

  I wished I could keep him in Washington with me. Jagger had a life in Miami, and just as I wasn’t willing to start over, it wasn’t fair for me to ask him to do it. But a girl could dream.

  “I’ll do more than that. But you’ve got to teach me how to move to them first. So I can practice.” I got up when the horns started playing and held my hand out to him.

  Jagger took it, lacing his fingers in mine, and put his other hand on my back. “Everything is an eight count. If I step forward, you step back. Start with your right foot.”

  One foot in front of the other. It should’ve been easy. But between counting, anticipating the next move, and being completely distracted by Jagger, I kept stepping on his feet.

  “Relax.” Jagger laughed, and I tried not to let my frustration show. I needed more wine. “I know you can move. Pretend we’re in bed.”

  I pressed my lips together. “Like I can think of anything else.”

  “Me neither,” he said against my ear, and I missed another step. “But we’re not fucking until you get this.”

  My jaw dropped. “You’re punishing me for having two left feet?”

  “More like rewarding you for good behavior. Think of it that way.”

  I had the Tipsy White Lady at the Bar dance nailed. Why was this so hard? I gripped his hand, steeling myself to start again. This time, Jagger counted the steps out loud, and I could concentrate on the way our bodies moved together. He wasn’t satisfied until I made it through a whole song without stepping on him.

  “That can’t be it.” It was too easy. “What about the hip stuff?”

  “Nail the feet first, then add the hips,” he said. This was going to take all night. “Ready for the next step?”

  Jagger taught me how to twirl and cross over. The next steps came easier, they weren’t so backward from what he was doing. I started anticipating his next move, following him until we circled the living room.

  His body moved effortlessly like it was part of the song.

  “I’m ready for the hip stuff now,” I said when he spun me into his chest. It was kind of a crash landing, I didn’t have everything perfect yet.

  “So am I.” Jagger’s hands fell to my hips. Our gazes locked and no one had to tell me to roll my hips. His hands guided the motion. I rolled them like I did in bed. I had no idea if this was proper Salsa protocol. My partner didn’t complain.

  Our lips gravitated to one another, the rhythm of the kiss complementing the movement of my hips. Jagger moved with me, just like the dance. Forward. Back. Round and round. His tongue a firm guide, just like his hands. We’d moved like this many times before, but we usually weren’t dressed or standing.

  “I’m ready for something else.” He stopped dancing. The room still spun around me. “I think you learned your lesson.”

  “I thought you said it was a reward.” After a few glasses of wine, he could’ve told me anything.

  “It is.” His lips were back on mine, and that was all the convincing I needed.

  Jagger led me to the couch. His hands were under my sweater, cupping my bra before we hit the cushion. The music still played, and his fingers danced over my breasts, keeping time as my nipples strained to meet the movement. I ached for him. We’d spent all week together, and finally we were home.

  I wished he were more than a guest. Baby steps, Leah. He just quit his job. But when we were together like this, all I could think of was the distance between us. How we should’ve never met. It was a one in a million opportunity, and I was terrified. If we messed this up, we’d never get it back.

  Fear throbbed thick in my throat, quelled by Jagger’s kisses. I fell back on the cushion, drinking it all in. His minty, vanilla scent. The rough tips of his fingers. The rasp of the stubble on his chin in contrast to his soft hair falling against my skin. Mixed with the music, I didn’t need wine to get drunk.

  One more day. That’s all we had together. Until whenever next time was. I already knew what withdrawal felt like. The chills, the pain, the despair. No, I couldn’t let him get away.

  My head swam when I sat up, and I had to focus on unbuttoning his shirt. Jagger watched me, heavy-lidded and still like the work of art he was. His broad shoulders bare, he unbuttoned the cuffs and let his hands fall so I could finish the job. Muscles defined his chest, and he shuddered when I ran my thumbs over his dusky nipples. I trailed down the plane of his stomach, bumping over the cut of each muscle. He groaned, his head falling back as I hooked inside the waistband of his jeans, anchoring myself into his lap.

  This sweater was in the way, so I pulled it off and let it fall to the floor. Jagger grinned at me. My arms were still in the air, frozen like he’d taken a picture of me. He ran his hands up my sides, settling back on my bra. That wasn’t long for this world, but Jagger was taking his time. Everything this week had been stolen—the time; each kiss and caress was hushed, done in the shadows at my parents’ house. Even our first night back home, our restraint stayed in practice. Sound traveled through an old house with thin walls, and Raven had heard enough about our relationship already that day.

  Now that we were finally alone, that feeling didn’t fade. We were in my living room, in the house I paid for, but this still felt forbidden. I couldn’t keep my lips away from Jagger’s, pulling him in close to me, riding the kiss like the steps to the dance.

  His cock was hard, hot, and trapped against my thigh. “Fuck,” he muttered when I stroked it through the denim. He sucked in a sharp breath, squeezing his eyes closed, but I didn’t stop.

  I was on my back before I knew what happened. Jagger held me down by my shoulders, his dark eyes wild with lust and desire. My body went haywire, an electric current pulsed through me. The thing about being with someone that you shouldn’t be with was every time felt like the first, and I always knew it could be our last.

  “Take your bra off, Leah,” he said, breathless. He rolled back, giving me room to honor his request. The way he’d pushed me down, I expected him to rip my clothes off me. But this was good, too.

  I picked up the strap of my bra, running my thumb under it, but I didn’t pull it down. I met Jagger’s smoldering, hungry gaze with a lazy smile, running my hands over the lace, dipping my fingers into the cups and running them over my nipples.

  “You’re a tease,” he said.

  “Just giving you what you asked for.” I almost laughed, thinking of our conversation in the kitchen this morning, when I said I wanted to do me, too. Turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. My back bowed when I made contact. They ached for him, but watching him watch me was worth any pain.

  My legs were trapped under his. I writhed but didn’t have anywhere to go. The sensations; my own touch, the heat of his body on top of mine, all this foreplay was making me stupid. It took everything I had to slide up enough to get my hands behind my back.

  Jagger captured my nipple in his mouth. There was something to be said for being with a man who’d had sex professionally all of his adult life. He knew what he was doing. I knotted
my fingers in his hair, pulling when he scraped his teeth lightly against the tight nub, and guiding him when he followed with his tongue. There was nothing I could add to this, but a little reassurance never hurt anyone.

  Jagger thrived off praise. He figured out my signals quickly and fed into it, driving me insane. The sharp bite mixed with the gentle caress of his fingers on my other breast.

  I needed his cock. I pushed my hands between us, fumbling with his jeans, but I couldn’t get the message from my brain to my fingers. We were running out of time, floating on a cloud somewhere above the place I thought I’d always belonged.

  He helped me, pushing his jeans away from his body, wriggling out of them without ever breaking contact with my nipple. I grabbed his shaft and slid it back and forth in my hand.

  “That’s so good,” he groaned. His hips bucked when I hit the right spot, running my thumb lightly over it. Finally, we were in the same place—wordless and mindless, where instinct and need took over.

  Jagger rolled onto his knees, pushing me down on the couch when I came up with him. He was so beautiful, his tan skin, muscles rippling, cock at full attention just for me. His hair fell in his face as he sheathed himself. I’d never get enough of this man.

  The button from my jeans clanged when it hit the floor. No more gentle anything as Jagger ripped them off me. He dropped them in the pile with the rest of our clothes, his gaze sweeping over me like a wildfire, out of control. His touch burned, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Once he stripped me, I landed in a heap. He picked up my legs, spreading me wide open. My pussy throbbed, he was so close but yet so far. Placing my calves against his chest, he considered his options and hoisted me up to meet his cock. I cried out when it hit the inside of my thigh. Not what I wanted. Jagger thumbed my clit, dipping his fingers into my folds like there was any question I was ready for him. I’d been drenched since we started dancing.

  He grabbed my thighs, steadying himself as he drove into me. Hard, quick thrusts sliding, hitting deep inside me at that angle. Each rock of his hips brought a moan to my lips. Jagger stopped for a second and smiled at me. He was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, actually shining. So fucking hot.

  A shock rolled through me when his thumb hit my clit again. The smile was wider now. These noises couldn’t belong to me. I floated above my body, Jagger’s long strokes bringing me to a different wavelength. Stars exploded brightly in my vision with every flick of my clit. Thankfully he was holding me, because this orgasm drove me over the edge, straight into freefall.

  My inner walls pulsed wildly around him, clamping down on him in a desperate attempt to keep him close to me as long as possible. But it didn’t work. He slid out, guiding me back to the couch, to planet Earth. He picked up his shirt and pressed it between my thighs. I loved that he cleaned me up when we were done. No one else had ever done that before.

  His breath was still heavy as he slipped his slick body between me and the couch cushion. He kissed my shoulder and wrapped his arm around my waist. Neither of us said anything, and his breathing deepened. I laced my fingers in his, staring at the clock.

  “Hey,” I turned into him. His eyelids fluttered but he definitely wasn’t awake. “It’s almost midnight.”

  His eyes opened. When he first woke up he looked so innocent. “Happy New Year, baby,” he mumbled.

  I sat up, straddling him. The room was cold when we weren’t close. “I was lying here thinking about my resolution.”

  “You make those things?” Jagger laughed and swatted my hand away when I tried to cover his mouth to get him to quit it. “What is it?”

  “To make sure we do this as much as possible.”

  He stayed quiet for a moment. “I want that, too.”

  I wondered if what we had was so good because it wasn’t meant to last.

  Chapter Five

  Leah

  It was like we never left, as the Great Start Today team assembled around the conference room table. This was as formal as we ever got at work. It was my office, and I refused to have anything stuffy. We needed to be creative. Our space was bright, open, and full of art.

  After I dropped off Jagger at the airport, I had to get the piece of me that he took with him back. I watched him disappear into the terminal, honking horns in the drop-off line be damned. He turned around and blew me a kiss. But it didn’t fill the hollow spot in the pit of my belly.

  “What’s with the music?” Diane, my executive producer wrinkled her nose. Change gave her hives. I was pretty sure a couple had already broken out on her neck.

  “It’s a new year, I thought we’d try something different. Music inspires creativity, and we’ve got a new show to put together.” I smiled at the blank, under-caffeinated faces that had gathered around the table.

  “Salsa?” one of the interns asked.

  “Why not?” I hadn’t realized I was working with such closed-minded people. This is why we needed Jagger on the team. He didn’t know the rules, so he wouldn’t be afraid to break them. “It’s freezing out. Let’s pretend we’re in the tropics.”

  Another intern smirked at me and leaned into his neighbor. “Leah’s getting laid,” he stage-whispered.

  “It’s good for you. You should try it.” Everyone gasped when I answered him. “So now that we have how Leah spent her Christmas vacation out of the way, does anyone have any new ideas for the show?”

  More blank stares. We needed something stronger than Salsa. “Why don’t we remind everyone where we left off before the break?”

  “We received literally thousands of emails, and when Leah and I went through these, we wanted to make sure we didn’t leave anyone out. This is a good cross-section of what we got. I tried to make sure we have something from everywhere,” Shannon, one of my interns, said. She was my favorite because she didn’t act like she was here as a stepping stone to something better. Shannon cared about what we did; fangirling if we worked with a celebrity she liked, and doubling down on this new project. She’d gone through the overwhelming amount of responses, sending me the ones she thought were best for consideration. More importantly, I trusted her opinion.

  She clicked on the slideshow visible on all our computers. Before our Christmas break, we’d decided to concentrate on businesses instead of residences. I hoped we’d have another season, and another chance to bring a forgotten property back to life. Jagger helped me narrow the choices down, and the ones we liked the most were a farm in Vermont, a library in Detroit, and a ghost town in New Mexico.

  “A logistical nightmare.” Diane dismissed the ghost town. It was cool as hell, but I agreed it was over our heads for season one.

  I scrolled through the offerings again. “Anything in Florida?” I was going to convince Jagger to work with us. I was biased, but he’d add the enthusiasm this team needed.

  “There were a couple, but these were the ones we got excited about when we went through them.” Shannon was also biased, her hometown was Detroit.

  “Detroit, Vermont, and Arizona are definitely in. Choose your favorite from the remaining properties, and the top three will also get voted on by the Great Start Today viewers.” I passed out paper. I still liked to do things the old school way. Technology didn’t make it easier. It didn’t take long for everyone to make their choices. I hoped that meant they really did have a favorite. “Now, here’s the next fun part. What are we calling the show?”

  So far it was the Untitled Leah Godfrey Makeover Project. While I thought it had a certain ring to it, it needed a more catchy title. I’d had a segment on the Great Start Today morning show for about a year, doing celebrity home makeovers, but to have something that was truly mine... It was almost too good to be true. That’s why it needed a name.

  You’d think I asked them some tricky math thing. We needed coffee to fall from the sprinkler system this morning. “Think about it and get back to me. I’m so excited. It’s hard for us to get started until we know which project we’re tackling, but we’ll
need contractors, and we’ll have to do research on the best ways that we can repurpose the building we remodel to serve the current community. That’s why it’s abandoned; it became obsolete.”

  “In the meantime, we can work on our upcoming Great Start Today segments.” Diane steered the subject back to her comfort zone. “We have an up and coming celebrity chef who needs a home kitchen makeover. Lucky for us, he’s in DC.”

  “Hold on a second.” I opened the file on my computer and my mouth dropped when I saw the picture. No way. Reno Romano. The guy my best friend happened to be dating. And Kari Gomez didn’t do relationships. We hadn’t spent as much time together as usual, and I barely knew this guy. Yet. “This is going to be a really cool project.”

  “We haven’t done a kitchen yet.” Shannon tapped her pencil. “Promise you won’t do the boring stainless steel and granite crap that everyone else does. I hate that.”

  “As long as he doesn’t insist on it.” And if he agreed to do this show, he had to know he was going to get what I wanted. I’d ask for input, but I got the final say, as long as I could get it by the producers. “But I’ve got some pretty good pull on this one.”

  **

  “I’ve been one of those awful friends who ignores everyone when they start dating somebody,” Kari groaned when she sat across from me at The Eighty Seven. “Let’s get it out of the way—I’m an ass. Now that’s done, what the hell happened at Christmas?”

  I’d sent Kari a few rage-filled texts, but gave up when she didn’t answer. “I’m guilty, too. It’s good to see you.” The Eighty-Seven was my favorite bar because they made the best sangria in the city. That was my only criteria. “Christmas... How do I sum this up? Beth hired Jagger and they rolled him out in an elaborate plan to humiliate me in front of everybody I’ve ever met.” No need to clarify who they were. Kari was all too familiar with the enemy.

  “They’re vile human beings.” Kari’s eyes narrowed to slits. “They’ll get what’s coming to them. I promise. If Karma doesn’t get them, we’ll figure out a way to sue them.”