His hand went behind my neck as his lips crashed down onto mine. Crashed. Not landed. Not pressed. Crashed. Hard. Bruising. Sending a shocked surge through my body, my arms going to his shoulders instinctively. He made a low growling sound against my lips, slamming my back up against my car as his teeth bit into my lower lip, drawing a groan out of me.
Then jut as suddenly as it started, he shoved away from me, rubbing a hand over his brow. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself as I tried to come to grips with what the hell had just happened. My body felt electric and suddenly, with his absence, so freaking cold. “Sorry,” he said, looking at me finally, moving closer. His hand reached out, running his thumb across my chin and lips, the skin feeling a bit sensitive thanks to his rough stubble. “That wasn't exactly professional of me, huh?”
“It's okay,” I said, swallowing hard.
He nodded, looking down at my lips for a long second, before moving back up to my eyes. “You touched me,” he said.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“You touched me. When I kissed you. Without being told or asked to. You just did it.” Holy shit. He was right. I did. That was big. “Baby steps, but that's really good, Ava,” he said, smiling slightly. Then he reached beside me, grabbing the handle of my car door and pulling it open. “I'll see you Thursday,” he said as I slipped into the car. As he closed the door, I could swear I heard him say, “I'm looking forward to it.”
Jesus.
After the Session
The door had barely clicked closed (quietly, I might add), when Jake came walking out of his room, this time in a pair of black exercise shorts and nothing else.
“How did it go? Did you fuck him? Did you actually come?”
“Oh my god,” I said, heat rising up in my cheeks for no good reason, “it doesn't work like that, Jake.”
“That's disappointing,” he said, shrugging. “You have beard burn,” he informed me.
“What?” I asked, moving toward the kitchen, just to have something to do.
“Beard burn,” he said again, following me, watching as I filled the kettle and put tea water on the stove, “like when a guy you're making out with has a beard and it rubs against your skin, love. Beard burn.”
Well, shit. I was caught. I brought a hand up to my face, feeling the sensitive, almost inflamed skin. Beard burn. What an appropriate term. It felt exactly like rug burn did, a sensation too hard to put into words.
“So you kissed him.”
“More accurately, he kissed me,” I said, turning to the fridge to look for something to eat. I had been way too nervous to eat anything substantial before I would see him.
“But you let him.”
“Yeah,” I said, dragging out the jelly, accepting that it was going to have to be a pb&j night, seeing as I hadn't gotten around to food shopping.
“Well, this deserves a little celebration,” he said, grabbing the jelly and putting it back in the fridge. “We're going out.”
“Jake,” I said, my tone sounding so much like a mom it was almost scary, “it is a Tuesday night.”
“So the fuck what?” he asked, grabbing the knob on the stove and turning off.
“Seriously... you know I'm not an... out and about kinda person.”
“Well, until tonight, you weren't a getting kissed kinda person either. Things change. Come on,” he said, his tone more serious. “I'll buy you some food. A couple drinks. What harm can be done?”
I sighed. He was right. And I was hungry. And, really, I could use a drink or two. “Okay.” I agreed, and he smiled, then bounded off to his room to change into actual clothes, though I swear he would go out shirtless if he could get into a bar like that.
Thirty minutes later, we were in a bar. Black tables and chairs, deep reddish orange walls. There was a fair amount of people around, eating, drinking. Being normal. Jake had situated us at the bar, ordered me food and a martini, got himself a beer. Then as soon as his beer arrived, he ditched me to go flirt with a table full of young, pretty tourists.
Honestly, I should have seen it coming. I was really to blame for thinking he was genuine about celebrating my little success. Jake was all about Jake. And that was never going to change.
I sat there, picking at my appetizer sampler complete with mozzarella sticks, queso dip and chips, onion rings, and chicken strips.
“What did I say about being alone at night?”
I felt myself jump, visibly jump.
Because... what the actual fuck?
My head turned as he slid into the seat beside mine, inclining his head toward the bartender who nodded and moved to make a drink.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out, a chip half the way to my mouth before I realized and put it back down on the plate.
He gave me a small smile, accepting his drink, something amber in a rocks glass, from the bartender. “I live across the street,” he said simply.
I glanced out the window, despite myself. We were in a nice area. Leaps and bounds nicer than mine, and mine was decent. Dr. Chase Hudson had some serious cash. “Oh,” I breathed the word out, looking down at my food.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, swirling his drink, but not actually drinking it.
“See the tall blonde guy at the table of women behind me?” I asked.
Chase glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. “Yeah.”
“That's my roommate. He was supposed to be taking me out for dinner and drinks.”
Chase chuckled, shaking his head. “You were right,” he said, sipping his drink, “he is an asshole.”
“I really should have known better,” I smiled, rolling my eyes.
“He really should be treating you better,” he said, looking down at me. “That's the way you should be thinking,” he told me.
I shrugged. “He's just a roommate.”
“He gets the privilege of spending dinner with you and then throws it away,” Chase insisted.
“I think you greatly overestimate my dinner conversation abilities,” I said, attempting levity. He was so god damn intense. It was disconcerting. Sexy as hell. But it put me on edge.
“Who needs talk?” he asked. “He could just look at you.”
Wow. Okay. Alright. So, he just said that.
“He gets to look at me all the time. It's a small apartment.”
“Lucky guy,” he mumbled under his breath, but I made it out anyway, and felt a flutter accompanying it. “So, Ava,” he said, his tone lighter, conversational, “what do you do for a living?”
“Oh,” I said, my brows drawing together. Were we actually going to do the talking thing? If there was one thing, other than the sex thing, that I sucked at, it was the talking thing. “Um... I work in an office.”
His lips twitched, like he knew what the problem was. And maybe, I don't know... found it charming. “What kind of office, babe?”
“Oh, I work at a small non-profit. We try to help get homeless vets up on their feet, reconnect them with worried relatives. That kind of thing.”
“Just a job or something you're passionate about?”
“My uncle was a vet,” I said, realizing it was the first time I told the story outside of my office. “He had PTSD and ran off on his wife and baby... lived on the streets for years before one of his former platoon buddies happened upon him one day and brought him back, made sure he got help.”
“How old were you?”
“Professional curiosity?” I asked, smirking.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, looking down for a moment. “Can we just pretend I'm not... who I am right now? We're just two people at a bar.”
“If we were just two people at the bar,” I said, smiling, “we wouldn't be talking at all.”
He let out a short, dry laugh. “Tell me.”
“I was fifteen. He had been missing for two years.”
“So you knew it was something you wanted to be involved in?”
/>
“Yeah, I guess. My school counselor pushed me toward a career in social work. After I graduated, I tried my hand at a few different jobs. Child services, which was just... too heartbreaking. Then I worked in a drug rehab place which was... too frustrating. Then I came across this job. And it was just... a perfect fit.”
He watched me as I spoke, interested, apt. His hand moved to rest on the back of my chair, not touching me, but there. “You know, you're really...”
“Hey,” Jake's voice broke in from my other side, “don't bother dude. She's not interested.” What? What the hell? Was Jake actually... trying to protect me? Brushing off someone he thought was pestering me? That was so incredibly sweet and unexpected of him. “She's not interested in any one but her sex doctor.”
Well, that was much more Jake-like.
“Shut the hell up, Jake,” I growled, eyes shooting daggers at him. Silently trying to make sure he got the point.
“No, seriously,” Jake said, too cocky or too careless to notice my silent plea for him to go away, “she's like frigid, dude. You don't want her.”
Oh
my
god.
I wanted to just curl up inside myself and die. Right there. Because it was just way too fucking humiliating to live through another moment of it.
Chase leaned forward on the bar, looking at Jake, extending his hand toward him to shake. “Dr. Chase Hudson,” he said, and I could sense Jake stiffen next to me.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Chase said, glancing at me in all my embarrassment, staring down at my hands, my hair falling like a curtain around me to hide my red cheeks and lip biting, “What you just did to her is absolutely fucking unacceptable,” he scolded, and my head jerked up to look between them.
“Dude, I didn't mean any offense...”
“It's not me you should be apologizing to, it's her. Do you have any idea how insensitive that was? Knowing that she is struggling, to rub her face in it in front of someone you thought was a stranger? You need to take better care of her.”
“I'm not her boyfriend or brother, man,” Jake defended himself, but I knew he was starting to feel the guilt.
“No, but I suspect her being here was your idea in the first place. This obviously isn't the kind of thing she's comfortable with. And then you fucking abandon her. Then make fun of her? Who does shit like that? She's in your life. You care about her at all... fucking do better,” he said, throwing money onto the bar then touching my back between my shoulder blades for a brief moment. “Ava,” he said, pausing, waiting for me to look at him. When I did, he gave me a smile, “I will see you Thursday.”
And then he was gone. Walking out the front door, pausing to look, crossing the street, then disappearing into his apartment building.
“Damn, I feel like a chastened eight year old,” Jake said, looking down at me. “Hey, sorry. I know I'm a dick. I shouldn't have... said that shit. I don't know what's wrong with me.”
“It's o...” I trailed off, glancing back toward Chase's apartment building. I could practically hear him telling me not to say it was okay. It wasn't okay. I needed to learn to stand up for myself a little bit. At least with Jake. I put up with way too much shit from him. “Actually,” I said instead, turning to look at him, “it's not okay. Nothing about tonight was okay. Taking me here only to abandon me. Then saying that stuff. It's not okay. And it needs to stop. Especially the talk about my sex life. I mean it. It stops now.”
Jake's brows lowered for a moment before a smile started to play at his lips. “Damn,” he said, nodding, glancing off toward the direction Chase left, “he really is helping you, huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That,” he said, sitting down and reaching for an onion ring. “That attitude. That speech. You never would have told me off in the past. Never. No matter how far I stepped over the line. He's really helping you. That's really great for you.”
He was right. He was really right. After three interactions with Chase, I felt enough confidence to stand my ground a little. Or at least try to. That was progress. That was more progress than I had made in years. “Seriously, though Jake. The talk about my sex life...”
He held up a hand, palm out. “Never again. I mean... not in front of anyone else anymore.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
“You should be thanking that doctor,” he said, grabbing a handful of chips.
I nodded. “How do I thank a guy?” I wondered aloud.
“Guys are easy,” Jake answered. “We don't need flowers and jewelry and fancy dinners. Show up wearing something sexy as fuck and we are happy men.”
I looked at him, smiling a little. “You're a genius.”
The next night after work I took a cab to the fanciest lingerie store I knew of. I also knew because I knew of it, that whatever I ended up picking out was going to cost me a small fortune. But it would be worth it.
For two separate reasons.
One, because it might help bolster my confidence a little. Women supposedly felt sexy wearing new pretty panties and bras and all that stuff. And I was about to be getting undressed in front of someone. I could use all the sexy I could get.
Two, because like Jake said, it was a good way to thank a guy.
The inside of the store was gorgeous. The walls were a crisp, but light, gray. The floors were an immaculate dark wood. There were two large white tables with trays of lacy undies and bras on them. The walls had built-in units with racks of matching bras and panties, garter belts, nighties, even robes. There were two black chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, on over each table. Toward the back were crisp white curtains draping a doorway that led, I imagined, to the changing rooms. Beside the doorway was a discreet gray service desk, a gorgeous redhead standing behind it in a tight black dress. There was slow, sensual classical music playing through hidden speakers and the air was warm, making me shiver coming from the cool outside.
There were two other women browsing the selections. I made my way toward one of the tables, feeling unsure. I honestly didn't know what would work on me. Or what would be sexiest to a man. I bought matching things on occasion. Blacks, whites, beige. And some could even be considered kinda hot, but I wanted something better than 'kinda hot'. I wanted something to inspire drool.
“Are you looking for something for a special occasion?” the pretty redhead from the desk asked, coming up beside me.
“Oh,” I said, dropping the panties I had been looking at. “Yeah. Um... I just started...” Seeing a sex therapist? And we are about to get naked for the first time together? Yeah, no. “Seeing someone,” I improvised.
“Ohh,” she said, giving me a knowing smile. “Well, you don't want to be looking here,” she told me, holding out an arm to follow her. Which I was all too happy to do. I could use all the help I could get. “Do you, or your... partner,” she said, effortlessly guiding through political correctness, “have a color preference? Red? Pink? White?”
That was a good question. There was no way I would feel sexy in red. Which made no sense, but it was just screamed sex and that would probably be too much. And I was never a fan of pink. “I think black would be best,” I said, knowing myself, knowing my closet which was full of varying shades of black.
“Always a good choice,” she said, guiding me toward the walls where the sets were displayed. “Silk? Lace?”
“Lace,” I decided, excited by the idea of the cutout peekaboo effect.
“How about this?” she asked, showing me a black floral lace balconette bra hanging above the matching panties. She reached into the rack, pulling out the panties. “These bottoms are cheeky,” she informed me, flipping them to show me the back, the cut high to let the a fair view of your butt hang out, but still covered a bit, “but we also have a matching thong if you would prefer.”
“Cheeky will be good,” I said quickly. I wanted to at least be covered when I was still... cover
ed.
“Great,” she said, glancing down at me for a second before flipping through the hangers and handing me a pair in my size. She went back to flip through the bras. “We also have thigh-high stockings and a garter belt to go with this, if you are interested.”
More layers? Sign me up. “Sure,” I agreed.
Next thing I knew, I was walking out with a pretty gray and black striped bag, black tissue paper happily spilling out of the top, and a few hundred dollars poorer. But it was worth it. At least, I was hoping it would be worth it.
I let myself into the apartment, finding Jake setting up his massage table. His eyes drifted down to the telling bag, one side of his mouth quirking up. “Good choice,” he said, nodding.
“Sure,” I agreed, smiling, “if I can get the balls to wear it.”
“I'll make sure you do,” he said, nodding. “What are you wearing over it?”
“Yeah, I get it. My clothes suck,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“The clothes aren't to blame. You just put them together badly.”
“Even worse.”
“I'll pick out something while you're at work tomorrow and lay it out for you.”
“Really?” I asked, stopping short on my way to my room.
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
But for his normally selfish disposition, it was. He was going to do something just because it was nice. For me. With nothing in return. “Okay. Thank you. But nothing too crazy, okay? I don't want to look like I am asking for it.”
“But you are.”
“But I don't want to seem like it. Something modest, okay?”
“Alright,” he agreed, “but only if what you have in that bag is black and lacy.
I smiled, “It is.”
“Good girl,” he nodded, turning back to his set up. Lotions, oils, and incense all needed to be laid out on a gorgeous silver and mirrored bar cart. “You nervous?” he asked, holding a lighter out to a stick of, what was bound to be, rose incense.
The Sex Surrogate Page 5
