Chapter Twenty-Three
Gamblin’
Soundtrack: Chet Faker, “No Diggity”
On their patio table overlooking the Gulf, candles flickered in hurricane lanterns. Soft music played in the background, and the ocean breeze blew off the humidity. Everything was perfect, including the woman he was with.
And to celebrate her perfection, Walker ordered a five-course meal for her birthday.
“I won’t be able to get out of this dress with all this food,” she said.
Not a problem. I’ll tear it off with my teeth, he thought.
Damn that woman and her dress. He was hornier than a two-peckered billy goat. But since he was a gentleman, he cemented his gaze to her eyes—instead of her tits—and asked her about her writing.
She twirled her hair for a moment then looked out at the ocean. “I started a novel.”
“Is that right? That’s exciting. What’s it about?”
“It’s a love story.”
“Can I read it?” Maybe he could help with the sex scenes.
Her fingertips traced the wine glass. “I’m not in a place where I can handle criticism yet. Maybe when I get closer to the end.”
That she’d assumed he’d criticize her stuck a pin in his hope. If she didn’t trust him, how would he ever win her back?
He’d just have to try harder.
The waiter arrived with the first course. Walker cracked open a crab leg and placed it on her plate. She dipped a piece of meat in butter and slid it into her mouth. A needy moan slipped out while she chewed.
“Taste good, Bluebell?”
A bright smile surfaced—the first he’d seen in days.
“What’s that pretty smile for?”
“You called me Bluebell.”
“Sorry, force of habit.”
She lowered her lashes. “No, I like it when you call me that.”
“Well then, Bluebell, I won’t call you anything else.”
Asparagus tips were the next course, and when she nibbled the tip of the phallic veggie, beads of sweat trickled down his back.
He almost poured his drink in his lap, watching her suck strands of fettuccini through puckered lips.
Over dessert, he captured a rogue dollop of whipped cream on her lip and licked it off his finger. She pinned a pair of hot blue gems to his mouth, and under that tissue paper dress, her nipples popped out to greet him.
Quickly excusing himself, he wobbled to the bathroom with a slight hunch and splashed cold water on his face.
Later, he took her back to the casino, where inside, orange and purple lights flashed and slots dinged and ringed. In the center, a bar ran from exit-to-exit. Callie waited for him there, and he ventured off to buy poker chips.
While he stood in line, at least a dozen men eye-raped her. He had to get her out of there. She belonged somewhere else—a gilded cage maybe—not a tawdry casino bar.
As the cashier doled out the chips, a man old enough to be her dad snaked up behind her and peeked down her back. After he got an eyeful, the Sultan of Sleaze sat next to her and heaved his fat arm around the back of her barstool.
Walker stalked over and yanked the chair out from under the guy. “Get the hell out of my seat.”
The man shot up with his hands in the air and slithered away.
Callie glanced around the bar for witnesses then lowered her voice. “What’s with the sudden Section Eight?”
“Section Eight?”
“Yeah, the crazy act. You could have just asked him to move.”
“Forget about that guy.” He grinned tightly. “Let’s play some blackjack.”
After a big win, which earned him an enthusiastic hug, he stupidly left her alone again at the slots. When he came back from cashing out, three frat-boys hovered over her like birds of prey.
The machine lit up, and she jumped up and cheered. One guy offered his congratulations in the form of a dirty paw on her back and a kiss on the lips. She flinched back in surprise.
Walker ran to her side, grabbed the little shit’s shirt, and raised him off the ground.
“Ow! What the hell—” the little shit hollered.
“Congratulations, you just won a five-gallon pail of whoop ass.”
“Walker!”
He set him down. “Touch her again,” he said warmly, “and I’ll slap the taste right out of your mouth.”
The shit rubbed his neck. “Are you with this asshole?”
Still hadn’t learned his lesson, had he? He cocked back his fist, but the guy’s pussy friends stepped in and hauled him away.
Callie’s eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. “Who are you? And what did you do with my art director?”
“He kissed you!”
“So?”
“So . . . I didn’t like it.”
“And what if I did?”
He gripped his beer like a vise. “Is that what you want? Someone else?”
“Someone else? Besides whom?”
The answer to that question should have been obvious, and that it wasn’t made his ears ring louder than the slot machines.
“I’ve spent my whole life around men who want nothing to do with me—my father, Daniel . . . you.” She closed her eyes and let out a sad sigh. “It’s my birthday, and I’d like to at least pretend there’s someone out there who wants me. Who doesn’t think there’s something wrong with me? Is that so hard to believe?”
That’s it. No more pussy-footing around.
He set down his beer and dragged her into his arms. “I’ve wanted you since I met you back in that douchebag club in New York. I’ve never stopped wanting you. There’s not a damn thing wrong with you. You’re perfect. And it kills me I’ve made you think otherwise. I want you so bad I can’t breathe. I ache for you. Honest to God, I’m in pain. I’ve had a headache since the last time we slept together. I’ve turned into an asshole. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t work. You don’t have to pretend, Blue. I want you. All of you—”
She pressed her fingertips to his lips. “Shh. I want you too.”
He closed his eyes and slapped his palm over his heart. “Do you have any idea how happy I am to hear that?”
“Walker?”
“Hmm?”
“You can kiss me now.”
He laughed and gave her a birthday kiss she wouldn’t forget. Her tongue, her hands, her smell—they healed him and brought him back to life. She was his magic elixir.
Speaking of magic elixir—he’d like to taste hers
“Upstairs. Now.” He tossed her over his shoulder and barreled toward the exit. As soon as the elevator doors shut, he plunged a hand down the back of her dress and thrust a finger inside her wetness. She moaned and he grinned. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night. Torturing me with no damn panties on . . .”
“I’ve been wanting to do this all night.” She wrapped her hand around his cock. “My God, you’ve been hard for hours.”
“You noticed that, huh? I’m hurtin’ for ya.”
The doors opened, and he picked her up again and took off running down the hallway. Outside the room, he set her down, dug out the key card, and dropped it on the floor. Muttering a few curse words, he crouched to grab it, but on the way up her legs distracted him.
“I love this dress,” he said, slipping his head under the hem. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” He pushed it around her waist. “Where’d your blonde go, Bluebell?” Between her legs, it was smooth and glistening. He put his mouth on the glistening part and drew a line with his tongue up to the spot that triggered her greedy sounds.
Breathy pants came from above as he smothered his face below. Her knees buckled. Steadying her, he grabbed her ass in one hand and wrapped her leg over his shoulder.
A door slammed down the hallway. Maybe. He wasn’t sure.
“The key,” she chanted. “The key.”
Mouth still attached to her pussy, he felt around on the floor.
“Hurry, they’re watching.”
He gav
e her one more lick, pulled his head out from under the dress, and wiped his face.
Down the hall, two white-haired old broads stood frozen in terror. One clutched her throat as if she were having a stroke. The other, dressed in mink in the middle of July, said, “I’d give away my husband’s brand new Beemer to have that man go down on me in the hallway.”
The other replied, “I’d give away my husband.”
“I’d give up my left tit,” said the lady in fur. “And that’s the only one I’ve got left.”
“Maybe we can pool the three of ours and get a deal.”
Callie snickered. “He’s mine, bitches.”
They let loose a barrage of laughs and stepped inside the elevator.
“Enjoy your evening, ladies,” Walker called out.
“Ha! Enjoy yours!” they sang.
Once again he dropped the key card. “Christ on a cracker. So help me God, Blue, if you don’t get that door open, I’ll break it down.”
Giggling hysterically, she picked it up and slid it through the lock. He sprinted to the master suite, ripping his clothes off on the way.
Racing behind him, she tripped and fell on the floor in a tittering heap. Flat on her back, she pointed to the chandelier and said, “Look how pretty. Let’s do it under that.”
A red light flashed in his brain, and panic spread like wildfire down to the tip of his swollen cock. “How much have you had to drink, Blue?”
Eyelids at half-mast, she cocked her head and said nothing.
He tallied the drinks in his head. After adding the half empty bottle of champagne on the table, all his excitement petered away. Five drinks. Five drinks too much for a certified featherweight drinker.
Maybe she wasn’t that drunk.
Callie stood and fell again, failing the sobriety test miserably.
Horse sense reared up and stomped on everything. If she woke up the next morning and regretted another night with him . . . No. He couldn’t do it. Almost in tears, he yanked his tie off the lampshade.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t . . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t . . . This isn’t—” His damn tongue wouldn’t let him say the words. “I can’t sleep with you.” His body protested so vehemently, he thought it might split open and erupt all over the white carpet.
“What’s not a good idea?”
“You’ve had a lot to drink.”
The heat in her eyes turned to ice. Here comes the storm. “So have you.”
He kissed her lips. Then her cheek. Then her hand. “I can’t sleep with you like this. Not when you’re drunk.” Shouting more apologies, he raced to his room before he changed his mind.
A shoe hit him in the back.
“Get the fuck out then, you, you . . . pussy tease.” She sniffled and whimpered.
He banged his forehead on the door. “I know, baby. I feel like crying too. We’ll try again. First thing in the morning. I promise.”
Leaving her all wet and needy and wanton took serious strength. But he was a machine, a pillar, a mountain, an ox, a three-boat barge of strength.
He was a man, dammit.
And given the amount of times he jacked off that night, he was also a teenaged boy.
“I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.”—Dorothy Parker
Was that a fucking joke? Did he just leave her? On her birthday? The insidious insult she wanted to scream stuck to her moss-covered tongue. Water. She needed water.
On the way to the fridge, his gift sidetracked her. What she wanted was Walker for her birthday, not a stupid present. She swallowed the urge to throw it in the trash and clawed off the wrapping. “Oh, Walker, you sweet, wonderful, man.”
Fairies and unicorns danced in her heart. He’d given her a pair of pink Chucks. Glittery pink Chucks.
But what he’d really given her was hope.
All she had left from her life before Daniel were the shoes she’d lost in the swamp that day. And how Daniel hated them too. “They make you look like a kid. They’re ugly. Don’t let me see you wearing them again.”
On the day her life crumbled, she’d dug out the sneakers from the back of the closet, put them on, and walked out the door.
The glitter Chucks fit perfectly. Of course they did—they were magic. She tapped her heels together. I want to go to Walker’s room. I want to go to Walker’s room.
Fuck it. She was breaking in.
Halfway there, the room started spinning. She careened towards the bathroom and called Uncle Ralph on the big white telephone.
After she emptied the five-course meal from her stomach, she staggered to bed and passed out, still wearing her new Chucks.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Glowin’
“His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.”—Dorothy Parker
Soundtrack: Alina Baraz, Galimatias, “Make You Feel”
By the time Callie emerged from the shower the next morning, she was ravenous—just absolutely starving for Walker.
Dressed in the fluffy hotel robe, she marched out, prepared to kick down his door. Lucky for the door, he was waiting on the couch, wearing nothing but jeans.
He pointed to his lap. “Get over here, Bluebell.”
A trickle of heat ran through her center. Owning it, she sauntered toward the couch, hips swaying like a super model traipsing down the runway. A foot in front of him, she tripped on the robe and fell to her knees.
He didn’t laugh, but his mouth twitched like crazy.
“You didn’t see that did you?” She stood and tightened the sash.
“See what?”
“Nothing.” She straddled him.
“How’re you feeling?” His voice was still gravely from sleep.
“Naughty.”
He removed his glasses, anchored his predatory peacock gaze to hers, then went in for a lubricating kiss. His scruff scrubbed her chin as he swirled his minty fresh tongue around hers.
Then he suddenly drew back, creases carving his brow. “We need to talk.”
Her stomach twisted. Really? Rejection before breakfast? She climbed off his lap, but he hooked her with an arm and reeled her back in.
Finger under her chin, he coaxed her gaze back to his. “I can’t do casual, Blue, not with you. I want strings.”
Maybe she was still drunk. “Say that again?”
“I want to date you.”
“Me?”
“You.”
Did he even know what dating meant? “So . . . you’re not going to sleep with other women?”
“And you’re not gonna sleep with other men. Or look at them. Or talk to them. Or stand in the same room. Basically, I’m gonna need you to wear a burqa from now on.”
She squinted a sideways glare.
Chuckling softly, he slipped the robe off her shoulders. “I’m kidding, but you’re mine, okay?”
It still didn’t seem kosher. “Does that mean we’re boyfriend and girlfriend?”
“And lovers, and friends, and coworkers, and artists, and humans, and anything else you want to call it, as long as we’re together.”
As she drank in the nectar of his words, her heart sped up to hummingbird pace. “Okay,” she said in childlike whisper.
“Okay what?”
“I’ll be your girlfriend.”
“Then I’ll be your boyfriend.” His worry lines lifted, his chest broadened, and his cock stiffened. It was as if she’d inflated him. “One more thing,” he said.
She sighed and suppressed an eye roll. “Yes?”
“From now on, we talk. About everything. And you don’t leave, or shut me out, or run away if we have a problem. I’m not your past. I’m your future—”
“Walker?”
“Yes, Blue?”
“Are you ever going to non-casually fuck me? I’m dying here, sitting on top of your boner.”
“Thought you’d never ask.” And with
that, he gathered her in his arms and took her to bed.
Soundtrack: Paula Cole, “Feelin’ Love”
Walker rested his head on Callie’s breasts. The beat of her heart matched his. She was his now. And he was hers. “Know what I want?” he asked, fondling her nipple.
“What?” She ran her fingers through his hair.
“A banana split.”
“Sounds healthy.”
“It’s got all four food groups—ice cream, fruit, nuts, chocolate fudge . . .”
Her melodious laughter reverberated through his body. “Then let’s get you a banana split.” She reached for the phone and ordered one from room service.
“What else are we going to do today?” she asked after the call.
“I’ve got big plans.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep. First, I want to eat my ice cream. Then I’m gonna take naked pictures of you. After that, I’m gonna have my way with you in that big bathtub.”
“Then what?”
“You mean between orgasms? Think you’ll get bored?”
She caressed his shoulders. “Not a chance.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m not letting you out of this room for a few days.”
“But when will I wear my new shoes?”
He tickled her side until she begged him to stop. “You opened your present! I wanted to be there. So what’d you think? Like the sparkles?”
“I love them, Walker. So much.”
“I thought you would. You looked like you’d severed a limb when you lost them in the swamp.”
“Best present ever.”
“They’re just shoes, Baby Blue.”
“Not to me,” she said.
Later, Walker put down his sketchbook and regarded the woman he was drawing. In a ray of sunlight, still glowing from an afternoon of making love, his sexy pixie lounged against a mountain of pillows, reading a book. The ocean breeze occasionally swept in from the open balcony door and flipped the pages for her.
“Watcha reading over there, Blue?”
“Raymond Carver stories.”
“Read me one.” He lay beside her.
Road-Tripped Page 21
