by Rie Warren
Cursing the stingy display on my phone, I viewed the goddamn thing three more times, wishing for Surround Sound and a big ass, flat-screen HDTV. Nicky’s laptop was on the desk, buried beneath a tower of papers and potato chip wrappers. Jumping from the bed, I double-checked the door this time. I wasn’t a total schmuck.
I cracked the computer open, gave myself a free pass for breaking and entering, and attempted his password. Nickyloveromance. Master hacker? Hell yes, I was. I made sure not to touch any of his open documents. There were thirteen in all including his WIP, outline, upcoming Q/As, pic files, promo spots, and follow-ups. I hovered over his two open web browsers long enough to note what I expected: Amazon, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook x two, Pimpterest, Instagram . . . and then a whole lotta what I could only call research. Porn in the name of his books. The bastard’s been holdin’ out on me.
Thinking about Ray and cookies and caches, I opened Google Chrome and left Nicky’s Mozilla and IE tabs alone. I’d close Chrome out and he’d never be the wiser. Navigating to the convention homepage, I bingo’d the tango once again.
Then boing. Instant boner.
Big screen was even better.
Leelee in that svelte black dress and short black hair shook her hips to entice me. She blew me a kiss with cherry red lips over her bare shoulder to excite me. My hands moved up her back to her neck, meshing her against me so we met from thigh to hips to chest to breath. And then we kissed. Violent, frenzied. Tongues appearing, hands grabbing, mouths taking.
I wanted to see that kiss, to feel her lips blazing me up like a blowtorch, one more time.
Several loops later, I’d pulled the chair to the desk, the laptop to me. I was practically on top of it, my gaze glued to the image of Leelee and me kissing for all we were worth.
The only warning I had of Nicky sneaking in was a smack to the back of my head. I tried to shut down Chrome, but his fingers clamped down on my wrist.
He stared at the flash-mob video then spun my chair around. “Who’s the stalker now, Stone?”
“Who’s the creeper, dillweed?”
With an almighty slap he closed the laptop. His hair and collar were loose, his lips swollen. I narrowed my eyes when he accused, “You fucking kissed her!”
“And who have you been mackin’ on, bro?” I stood up and pushed him back. “I recognize that I’m-gonna-get-some look.” I sniffed his throat. “Lipgloss, watermelon flavor, right there, asshole.”
“Guilty, but it wasn’t with one of the insiders, and it certainly isn’t gonna end up on YouTube.”
“You smell like perfume.”
He jabbed my chest. “You smell like spunk.”
“You’re a few hours late for that.”
Sliding down the floral-papered wall, Nicky hauled his knees to his chest. “Shit, man. Just keep it in your pants for three more days.”
I hunkered beside him. “You’re the one who wanted me to settle down. Now I find a woman and I can’t make a move?”
“I didn’t think you’d find the girl of your dreams here, Josh.”
“I didn’t think I’d find her ever.” Punching to my feet, I paced between our bed and the desk. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Not here, Josh. Not now.” Frustration crept into his voice.
I pounded the wall. “Goddammit!”
“We’ll figure something out after.”
“Yeah, and how’s that gonna work? Leelee already thinks I’m gay, at best bi-curious. Her ex-fiancé is a two-timing, backdoor douchebag. She isn’t gonna be impressed if I come out straight after the Con, and you still have your rep to think about.”
He opened his mouth and then shut it tight.
“Exactly. I’m fucked.”
Nicky glared at me with cool eyes. “So, you know the score. Why are you being such a bitch about this?”
The bitch comment wiped the scowl right off my face. “Holy shit. Who died and made you princess?”
“Fuck you. I’m the queen and don’t you forget it.” He lunged for my midsection and we crashed to the floor.
“Straight up,” I wheezed with his forearm across my windpipe.
Grabbing a chunk of my hair, he thunked my head to the carpet. “Ha ha.”
Incapacitating the slick motherfucker with my arms and legs, I used my superior body mass to flip him onto his back. “Who’s the man now?”
“Me!” He gasped when I sucker-punched him in the ribs.
We rolled around, wrestling, laughing and half off our heads from sheer exhaustion. Finally he held up his hands in mercy, stumbling onto the bed.
I back-planted beside him and dragged his noggin in for a last noogie.
“You’re still an asshole.” Nicky rubbed his sore skull.
“But I still don’t lick asshole.”
Fist bump. All good.
Until Nicky turned on his pillow. “Remember the time that chick thought you were gonna propose to her—”
Her name I would never forget—but not for lack of trying. “Shayna.” Single mom, wore desperation like the cloying perfume clinging to Nicky, and laughed like a hyena.
“—because she’d heard about your rep and you saw her three Friday nights in a row? What’d she do when you changed your cell number after she texted you every hour on the hour for five days straight?’
“She made a scene at Stone’s. I think Javier videoed it on his phone. First she threw a chair at the reception window, and then she started bawlin’ in front of the customers. When I tried to get her to take it to my office, she accused me of leading her on—which I never did. All the ladies know the deal with me. She finally left. Not before she slashed all the tires on my Bronco.” Great times with Shayna.
“Good thing she never got her paws on the Camaro, since that’s your one true love.”
I flicked him on the end of his nose. “I think I might’ve tipped her over the edge when I offered to give her an adios fuck.”
“Not your most chivalrous moment, my man.” Nicky closed his eyes, sleep about to pull him under. “’Sides, you attract crazy.”
“That explains you, then, don’t it?”
“Funny guy,” he tiredly slurred.
“Tough guy.” I gave him my butch voice and bunched up my muscles.
But I wasn’t made of tough guy material at all, not when I thought about Leelee and everything I wanted with her. I didn’t want her to become a girlfriend revenge story, and she wasn’t even my girlfriend yet.
By the time I checked the clock, it was time to haul out. I set the alarm on Nicky’s phone so he’d have a few minutes to wake up, freshen up, and make it to my debut as a strutting stud in Jules’s contest.
When I opened our door on the way to Guys with Balls, the Hens about fell inside. They looked a little hectic from all the eavesdropping they must’ve been doing.
“Y’all got an appointment, ladies?” I tried to look stern, in the white terrycloth robe Jules had sent to my room, fedora in my hands.
Janice was back to the hippy look today, complemented by lemon-yellow lenses in her sunglasses. “Because of unnecessary lemons,” she mentioned in answer to my pointed glance.
“Only lemons I know are bad cars,” I said.
“Fanfic reference, hot stuff, never you mind.”
Just when I was about to ask what the hell fanfic was, Jacqueline slipped between us. “Is everything all right in there?”
“Peachy keen.” I smirked at Missy Peachtree.
Missy pushed a foot inside the door to keep it open and pierced me with an all-too-knowing stare. “Just rolling like a stone, right?”
Janice sidled up to me. “That sounded like a really big bust up in there.”
“Trouble on the rough seas?” Jacqueline scanned my legs and the loose robe as I turned down the hall.
“Or maybe just really rough sex,” I called back over my shoulder. “Y’all will be at the contest?”
Swoons, sighs, tweeting!
Yeah, I’m all over this shi
t now.
Feeling like a dude headed for a slaughter but dressed up for a spa day, I ignored all the camera flashes, all the giggles, all the titters sent in my direction as I motivated to the appointed room. Someone else had seen the tango-de-stupido and it wasn’t just me. More like a thousand-plus someone elses.
As soon as I shouldered between the heavy black curtains to backstage, Jules pounced on me. “Stone! You’re late.” She pinched my ear and squeezed my ass. She ripped off my robe and hollered through the megaphone, “Clothes! Hair! Oil! STAT!” She slapped my chest. “Just remember, act natch but don’t act. Make it sexay but not obvie, mm’kay?”
“Right,” I replied as I stood bare ass naked in the middle of a bunch of similarly undressed beefcakes.
A pair of dark brown leathers was handed to me, and a pair of women barely waited until I pulled them over my legs before pushing me into a chair in front of a mirror.
“Spike it?” Female number one with fuchsia stripes in her hair asked her companion.
A glimmering tongue-ring appeared from the other woman’s mouth as she tapped it against her teeth. “Fauxhawk?”
“Not long enough.” Long-nailed fingers scraped along my scalp.
“Keep Stone au naturel. He’s already fit, fine, and fu-hot,” Jules barked through the megaphone, stalking past us.
Assured I was au naturel enough to pass muster, I was released to the fitting area. Male models streamed past me as rock music blasted from speakers overhead.
“Gah! Exact fit.” My seamstress slid her fingers around the waist of my pants, along the inseam and down to my feet. “Shoes?”
“Work boots.” All-seeing Jules commanded the backstage chaos with one eye on everyone.
It was giving me the fucking heebie-jeebies.
A pair of scuffed up Timberlands were offered. I was prodded to a mirror. Wearing low-riding dark brown leathers and nothing else, the snug fit was downright indecent. They cupped my junk, my ass, and left little to the imagination.
“He’s perfect!” Fuchsia-streaks shrieked.
Jules stopped beside me long enough to yank the leathers an inch lower so my Jesus crease showed. “Now he’s purrrrfect.”
“Ah-mazing.” A lady with a mouthful of pins piped up. She accepted a bottle of oil and handed it to me. “Slick up, Stone.”
I held the offending article up to my face. “Huh?”
Fuchsia hair called over, “To show off the cuts of your muscles.”
“To make you a cut above,” Jules confirmed. When I continued to hesitate, she took up a drill sergeant stance, bellowing through the bullhorn, “Do I need to make you drop for twenty?”
“No, ma’am,” I replied sullenly.
I uncapped the bottle to pour oil into my palm. I rubbed it all over my chest, my abs, my shoulders. The atmosphere in the small backstage area was electric, filled with big men puffing up even bigger, herded from station to station. Our egos probably sucked all the oxygen from the room. Sweat dripped down the middle of my back as I tried to reach between my shoulder blades.
“You need help there, braw?” a buff blond dude asked.
“Nah, I got it.” I stretched a little farther, twisted a little harder.
He snatched the slick from me. “No need to be proud. I’ll just do your traps and obliques.”
I forced myself to remain still as he massaged my back, hitting all those places I couldn’t get to on account of not being a contortionist. Thank fuck, Jules hadn’t made this a backstage show; the crowd, Hens, Widows, women would’ve loved a view of this.
“Pull those pants lower.” Big Blond’s fingertips slipped just above my ass-crack before he smacked my left cheek. “Chicks like to see some of that. Nice bod, by the way. Are you auditioning for cover model?”
I thanked him for basically grooming and groping me and turned around. “Not really. Miss Gem roped me into this.”
The guy before me had the whole package. Pretty boy face and dimples. Long blond hair. Shoulders ripped with muscles. If I didn’t possess a healthy ego myself, I’d have gone off and cried in a corner.
“She’s a right bitch, but she makes the magic happen.” He patted my ribs. “Good luck, man.”
“Places, people!” Jules single-filed us. I wasn’t the show starter or the showstopper. I was the middle man, story of my life. “Don’t make me regret adding you to the line-up, Stone. Now get that squee-worthy ass ready.”
My nuts journeyed up into my body with her threat. No worries about sporting a woody now.
Several minutes later, from somewhere on the other side of the curtains came Jules’s introduction: “Welcome to the 7th Annual Literary Love cover model competition—hosted in conjunction with Fever Romance Publishing—Guys with Balls!”
Screeches filled the air. It sounded like they came from a bunch of otherworldly banshees. But no, it was just the ladies revved up for the show. The blond Viking boy was up first. He took the house down. Shouts raised the roof, money probably fell into his jeans, and his jeans probably disintegrated down to a vinyl g-string.
“Good crowd!” My masseur swaggered back through the curtains.
There were a couple more men before me, and I zeroed in on the hairy-chested, ruffled-shirted rendition up next. It was the guy from the book cover in the elevator. Pirate of the Happy Peen, aka Rafael. He must’ve already had a million fans, and they erupted with bloodthirsty screams while he swashbuckled his way up and down the stage.
I peeked out when the dude before me took his turn. He was built like an army tank. I almost felt inadequate until I watched him shake his ass and kiss his guns. That just made me roll my eyes.
Jules dj’d, “Say hi to Marko, ladies! The louder you yell the more votes he gets. Marko’s fave place to make love is . . .”
The ladies beyond the stage went freakin’ nutso.
“In his bed!”
Boos followed his sooo boring answer.
One of Jules’s minions raced up to me. “This is fail. You have to bring ’em back online.”
The shouts became rabid. “Eye candy! Bring on the eye candy!”
Catcalls and wolf whistles shot through the crowd. “Stone! We want Stone!”
I parted the curtains.
“Hard as a Rock” by AC/DC blared through the speakers.
Strobes blinded me, guitars deafened me, nerves chewed through me. Christ, even my palms were sweaty, not that anyone could tell. They were all greased up like the rest of me. But I sure as hell wasn’t gonna pull some candy-ass move like licking my biceps.
“Introducing our Hard as Rock, smoking hot amateur. I give you STONE!!! Mr. Stone likes to take it all down low, down-home. Can I get a hell yes, ladies?”
The women positively salivated, and I hadn’t so much as moved a step. Lifting my arms behind my head to tip my fedora forward, I scanned the feisty crowd. The Widows and Hens were front and center, seemingly competing for who could be the crudest, loudest, and rowdiest. Nicky winked at me. Leelee stood at the forefront, one palm pressed to her chest, her gaze penetrating me. With my arms raised, my muscles bunched and twisted, the leathers slipped even lower down my pelvis, and that was all it took to bring the noise level to an ear-bruising roar.
The song wailed even louder, the badass beat pumping through my body. One thumb hooked into the pocket of my snug pants, I strutted down the runway.
It was an all-male meatfest. So this was the magic happening. Magic Mike maybe. I just needed to rub my crotch on a broomstick handle and Show Over.
The guttural AC/DC lyrics punched through me. It was all about sex. Fucking. Leelee. I saw her below me, thought about her beneath me. When I reached the end of the mile-long runway, I rubbed a hand down my chest to my waist, tapping on a single silver button while I stared at her.
“DO IT, STONE!” Jacqueline crammed four fingers into her mouth and blew out a screeching whistle.
Felicity jumped up and down, her glasses knocking around on her nose. “Don’t be a pussy tea
se!”
Pulling the button open, I slipped one hand inside the skintight leathers and touched the base of my cock. The shit was so tight I could hardly form an erection, but blood pounded to my groin nevertheless. Leelee unblinkingly watched every motion as I thrust my pelvis against my hand in time to the music. Dragging my palm up, I made sure the zipper pulled open, a thatch of pubic hair visible.
Swaying on her feet, Leelee skimmed her hands down her sides, swiveling her hips.
I’m gonna have that.
I doffed my fedora to the foaming-at-the-mouth melee, bowing deeply in Leelee’s direction.
Hot spots shined on her cheeks.
Pretty damn pleased with myself, I made my retreat, catching a glimpse of Jules up and off to the left, urging the crowd on with her hands raised in the air.
I received a mess of back slaps backstage. Handed a bottle of water and a towel, I stood aside to watch the rest of the men do their thing. I had to hand it to them, it took some kind of balls to get their kit off on book covers for everyone in the world to see, mingle with the man-hungry mobs, and still stand around to cheer one another on. I clinked—or rather, smushed—my bottle of water to the blond’s.
Things didn’t go so happy for the next guy. He pushed through the curtains to a round of boos.
Army-tank gave him a burly hug. “You and me both.”
“Bitches be fickle. One year it’s blonds, the next it’s brunets. No one can predict the trends, but you did great out there.” My Viking mate soothed the man’s busted ego.
He was almost in tears.
“Tough crowd, man.” I patted his back.
“Got that right.” He attempted a smile and glugged his water.
Four models later, the competition was over. I couldn’t wait to get to Leelee so I rubbed as much sweat and oil off my body as I could and hurried to the front. The Hens and Widows had teamed up and taken over a couple tables where two pitchers of beer sat. As I approached, they all jumped up for a standing ovation and more whistles that made my footsteps stutter. My face got hot and I remembered I was wearing the bare essentials, and I’d forgotten to button back up. I hastily remedied my almost-flasher moment. Leelee followed the motion of my hands, making me even hotter as testosterone fueled every single cell in my body.