Fever

by Carnal, MJ

  He loosens his grip on me when he feels me turning around. I want to really see where he lives, really see what Nick likes and to know every little thing about him, so I tell him that. He laughs but agrees to show me everything. We start in the kitchen, as most people do, and he offers me something to drink and eat.

  “I have someone come every day when I’m gone. Scooby goes to a doggy daycare, he’s a spoiled brat.”

  I laugh, trying to hold in the water spilling from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. “Doggy daycare? Interesting.”

  “Don’t judge. You don’t want a Great Dane stuck inside a house for too many hours, that’s when you come home and start discovering holes all over your walls,” Nick says in a serious tone that tells me it’s happened.

  “Why do you have him here though? I mean, why not buy a house with a yard?” I ask.

  He places his forearms on the counter across from me and leans in. I love the way his shoulders move up when he’s in that position. And the way his neck extends … and the way his lips part slightly, making his full mouth look fuller.

  “I will someday,” he says.

  I roll my eyes and exhale. “Let me guess, when you’re ready to start a family.”

  His lips tilt up slowly. “Exactly.”

  “So predictable,” I say, shaking my head.

  Nick circles the counter and pulls my hand so that I hop off the barstool. When I turn to walk toward the bedrooms he slaps my butt and I yelp at the unexpected sting, though it wasn’t hard.

  “Nick!” I reprimand.

  “I never claimed to be unpredictable,” he says, growling into my ear and placing a rough kiss on my neck before squeezing me into a hug.

  “This is my favorite room,” he says, turning the knob to what looks like a recording studio with no closed off booth. There are musical instruments laid out across the room, leaning on the wall and sitting on chairs.

  “Hmm. Not the awesome living room?” I ask, surprised that the massive living room with the stunning view and large sectional wouldn’t be his favorite place.

  “Nah, I love it, but it’s not my favorite,” he says. “This is where the magic happens.”

  I laugh. “Isn’t that supposed to be your bedroom?”

  Nick shakes his head and looks at me like I’m a moron. “That’s so played out.”

  “So you make music here?” I ask, stepping into the dark room with black padded walls.

  “Magic,” he repeats, making me smile.

  “Okay, so show me the magic,” I say, giving in to his little game.

  “Sit,” he orders, pulling out a big leather chair that looks like it belongs in a living room more than a regular room.

  When I sink into it, I realize why it’s here to begin with. I could fall asleep on it, and I’m assuming Nick often does. He sits in the one beside me and hands me some earphones, putting on a pair himself before he starts touching the controls on the soundboard. I get lost watching the way his hands move over it, and before I know it, there’s music playing in my ears. The song is slow yet fast, it’s sensual yet trendy. It’s difficult to explain, even for me, who listens to music all day. There’s a bit of that Houston chop and screw vibe to it, yet it has a little Marvin Gaye too. It’s absolutely brilliant, really, the way it’s mixed in there.

  Closing my eyes, I let the music sink in, and as I try to sort out the types of music in it, I hear Nick’s voice, singing a verse. It surprises me so much, my eyes snap open and I gasp. He smiles at me, knowing I can hear him, and I notice it’s something he previously recorded. He pushes down on a button and talks into his microphone.

  “It’s for Shea. He’s going to kill this beat, right?” he asks, his voice sure like he knows this song is a sure hit. I can’t argue there, I can totally picture it being played everywhere. I take my earphones off and he does the same.

  “You sound really good,” I say.

  He shrugs off the compliment but smiles. “I try.”

  He’s not as good as Shea, but he’s definitely better than a lot of singers on the radio nowadays.

  “How did you get into producing anyway?” I ask. “Did you want to be a singer?”

  Nick laughs as he stands and takes our earphones and sets them down on the board. He takes my hand and pulls me out of my seat, stepping out of the room with our hands joined together.

  “As flattered as I am, singing isn’t my thing. I can compose a song, play it on different instruments, but not really sing it … not good anyway. Producing comes easy to me. I’ve always made songs, worked out beats. I guess it’s in my blood,” he explains with a shrug.

  I mull his words over for a moment as he pulls open the door to what I’m assuming is his bedroom. It’s a vast space: the walls are all dark gray and the dark wood king sized bed in the middle of the room is low to the ground. His bed has a big fluffy comforter like the feather goose ones that hotels have, which I love. I notice that his walls are plain and everything is pretty simple. He has a leather couch that’s pushed off to one side of the room and a massive television on the wall in front of his bed. Why is that not surprising?

  “Nice,” I comment, walking around his room. I stop short when I take a closer look behind the couch. At first glance it looks like he has a regular bookshelf beside it, but looking at it closer I notice that they’re not books, they’re vinyl records. Holy smokes. The man is my ultimate weakness. It has been confirmed. I walk up to it, not even trying to hide my excitement, and hear Nick laugh behind me.

  “Aha, I have something you like,” he says.

  “Shh,” I respond, running my fingertips along the edges and taking a deep breath to smell that old lovely scent that means the world to me. I begin to pull some out but stop short when I find a specific one that makes my jaw drop.

  “Oh. My. How’d you get this?” I ask, holding up a Please Please Me LP by The Beatles that says: Promotional. Not For Sale on the cover. I feel weird touching it, even if I’m only holding it by my fingertips. I lay it down on the couch and stare at it in complete awe. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” I ask in shock.

  Nick throws his head back in a laugh, and as adorable as I find his carefree laugh usually, I can’t bring myself to pick up my jaw from the floor. “Am I still predictable?” he asks amused.

  I shake my head, my mouth still agape. “No, but for real, how?”

  Nick just smiles and shrugs. “Ah … one of the many unsolved mysteries of Nick Wilde,” he muses like an idiot.

  “You’re not going to tell me?” I press.

  “Maybe someday. I can’t give you all my secrets in one day, then you’ll get bored of me and leave me high and dry,” he says as he disappears into his closet.

  “I can’t even touch that record to put it away now that I’ve seen what it is,” I say. He laughs. “I’m serious.”

  “Brooklyn, it’s just a record,” he says from his closet.

  My eyes widen. He can’t see me, but I’m just shocked right now. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my day. I’ve met a lot of important people, been to more exclusive events than I can count. Hell, I’ve even met Sir Paul McCartney himself. You would think seeing this record would pale in comparison, but it doesn’t. Not one bit. Maybe because it’s one of my favorite bands, maybe because I wasn’t expecting to see it, maybe because my own father doesn’t have an exclusive vinyl like this one, or maybe because I wouldn’t in a million years expect Mr. Cocky Music Producer to have one.

  “How did you say you got into the music business?” I ask, knowing he hadn’t said anything about it at all.

  “I love music,” he answers.

  I exhale, unwilling to let myself get frustrated. I’ll find out sooner or later, even if I have to call Hendrix or Sarah for the real scoop. “Whatever,” I mutter, taking a seat on the edge of his bed, which is super soft and comfortable. I just feel like crawling in it, but I hold back. It’s weird how a place I’ve never been before can make me feel so comfortable, so at home. I’m
not sure if I like that I feel this way in his house. Everything I feel around Nick Wilde is new, unsettling and scary.

  “You wanna go somewhere with me?” he asks as he steps out of his closet again, this time wearing a black polo shirt.

  “I thought I already did that,” I answer as my eyes do a quick sweep of his body.

  Nick pulls on his hair as if to style it and drops his hand suddenly when he sees me sitting on his bed. He walks toward me slowly, tilting his head as he appraises me with an unmasked desire in his eyes that blazes right through me. He sits down on the bed beside me and leans into me, placing a kiss on my jaw that makes me squirm. “I really love you on my bed,” he says in a low voice. “Maybe I should tie you up and keep you here,” he suggests, running the tip of his nose along my cheek up to my earlobe and inhaling a breath as he moves over my face. “Maybe I should give your body a thorough inspection and tease you until you beg me to keep you here with me,” he says exhaling, his raspy voice over my ear now. I bite down on my lip when he licks the outer shell of my ear. “Would you like that, Brooklyn?”

  I nod my head because I know how thorough his explorations are and how amazing they make me feel.

  He bites my earlobe. “Hmmm,” he says, moving in front of me so that I lay back on the bed and he’s positioned in between my legs. “Every time I breathe you in, I want to taste you,” he whispers huskily. “Would you like for me to taste you?”

  “Yes,” I say, my voice strained as he teases me with butterfly kisses down my neck.

  “Yes what, Brooklyn?” he asks. A pleasured moan escapes my lips at the way he says my name against my skin. He enunciates it slowly, like he’s having sex with it and enjoying every goddamn second. His lips stop moving against me and I know he’s waiting for my answer.

  My mind is in a haze; he had me when he said something about tying me up. “I don’t know! What was the question? Just tie me up and fuck me already,” I say, breathing erratically.

  I feel him smile against my neck right before he begins to chuckle, making me throw my head back wantonly because his laugh courses through me, making me vibrate from the inside out. He continues sucking on my neck, traveling up to my face and stopping over my mouth. He sucks both of my lips into his mouth before parting them with his tongue and slowly exploring my mouth. As soon as I put my hands on his head, he breaks the kiss, leaving us both panting for air, needing more of each other.

  “Oh, I will,” he says, his voice gruff. I whimper at that, moving my hips off the bed, pushing myself onto him. “Just not right now. Right now, we need to get out of here,” he whispers, adjusting his very obvious hard-on as he stands and pulls me from the bed.

  “What?” I all but yell, my heart beating erratically.

  He caresses my face softly as he looks at me, desire swimming in his eyes. “If we don’t get out of here, I really am going to tie you to my bed and fuck you until you can’t breathe,” he explains.

  Putting my arms around his neck, I fix his collar before dragging my hands over his sculpted chest. I stop on his belt buckle, making him groan.

  “Maybe I want that,” I counter, looking into his hooded eyes that match my own.

  “Brooklyn,” he says, my name sounding like a hiss.

  “What?” I ask, trying on my best good girl voice.

  He closes his eyes as he swallows and grabs my wrists so that I don’t move my hands. “I want to take you places and if we start this, we won’t stop.”

  “Okay,” I agree, knowing he’s right and wondering about his plans.

  When we get back to his car, he opens my door and waits until I’m seated properly before closing it and walking to his side.

  “Do you always use your chivalry to impress the ladies?” I ask playfully.

  He shrugs, smiling. “Let’s just say I was trained well.”

  I smile despite the pang in my chest. I can’t help but wonder who trained him. Was it Stephanie? Was it another girlfriend? I groan internally and look out the window. Seemingly sensing my discomfort, Nick grabs my hand and places it on his lap, locking our fingers together and drawing circles with his thumb over mine.

  “You’re so easy to read,” he comments, chuckling as he pulls into the narrow street.

  “I know,” I agree. I’ve always hated that. No matter how hard I try to school my emotions, they always show. He squeezes my hand when I try to pull it out of his hold.

  “I have an amazing woman in my life who’s taught me everything I know about how to treat a lady,” he explains and I hate the way my stomach clenches at the thought of it. I hate the way my blood runs cold thinking about the women he’s had in his life. It’s a stupid feeling, this jealousy, but it’s one I can’t help or erase. “I’m talking about my mother, Brooklyn.”

  “That’s nice,” I comment flippantly, focusing my eyes outside of the passenger window, unwilling to look at him or acknowledge the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  I swallow, looking up at the larger-than-life bridge and watching the waves of the ocean below as they crash against its columns.

  “Nothing,” I respond, smiling for his sake. “How many girlfriends have you had?” I ask because I’m morbidly curious. Emphasis on the morbid, because that’s how whatever answer he gives me will feel.

  “Define girlfriend,” Nick says, his tone light.

  I look at him and roll my eyes. “Answer the question.”

  He laughs. “Two. One in high school, one in college.”

  I look away again, hating those two nameless, faceless girls. “How long were you with them?”

  He exhales loudly. “High school, I was with Tiffany for two years. College I was with Amber for a little less than one,” he says.

  I cringe because now they have names and that makes them real and makes me hate them more. I decide that the previous relationship discussion is the worst idea I’ve ever had and draw the line right here. I don’t know why I was expecting him to say he’d never had one.

  “So ... you and Shea,” he says quietly.

  Letting out a breath of my own, I rest my head on the headrest and tilt my face to him.

  “Yup,” I say, not knowing what else to add to that.

  “How long were you together?” he asks.

  I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and bite down on my lip, trying to figure out how to answer. Nick lets go of my hand when we reach a red light and leans over the center console to tug on my hair and pushes it back out of my ear, making me smile.

  “I love this,” he murmurs, his eyes darting from the strand of hair back to the street.

  “We’ve known each other forever. We dated for a little while, then broke up, then … sort of dated again,” I say. How do you explain a fuck buddy? Are you supposed to say “he was my fuck buddy” or is there another more socially acceptable term that you use when describing a former fuck buddy to a potential boyfriend? This whole thing is a little bit of a pain in the ass.

  “Sort of dated again when?” he presses.

  “On and off for about five years,” I murmur under my breath, looking away from him again.

  “Five years!” he says loudly. “Five?” he asks again, sounding disturbed.

  “Yep,” I say, feeling my face getting hot as I look out the window.

  Nick pulls over suddenly into what looks like a dog park, and he throws the gear in park. “Five years you were his—what? Fuck buddy?” he asks.

  Cringing, I close my eyes. It sounds so much dirtier when you actually voice it. More judgmental. “Yep,” I repeat, quieter this time.

  “Brooklyn, look at me,” he says. “Please.”

  My shoulders slump and I turn at his plea. Apparently I can’t say no to someone with good manners. “What?” I whisper, still unwilling to look him in the eye, so I zone into his collarbone, hoping he won’t notice.

  He brings his hand to my chin and tilts my face. “Why’d you put up with that?” he asks.


  I don’t know what I was expecting or where I thought this conversation was going, but it wasn’t that question at all.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, frowning.

  “Why would you let him use you like that?” he asks, frowning back at me.

  “He didn’t use me,” I argue, shooting him a confused look. “It was just what we did. It worked for us.”

  Nick looks at me for a long moment and I see sympathy in his eyes. It occurs to me that he knows Shea well, and he sees the way he treats the women around him. He searches my face for a moment longer and finally drops his hand from my chin. “When did it stop? I’m assuming you ended it?”

  “About a year ago?” I say, not meaning to make it sound like a question, but it does. We weren’t actively together up until then; a year ago was a slip up on my part. In the past I’ve needed drugs. A year ago, hanging out with Shea, I was tempted being around a lot of drugs and ended up choosing my best option for the night—which was him.

  Nick nods rapidly as if he’s trying to process all of this, and then suddenly hits his steering wheel. “Fuck,” he mutters, shaking his head.

  “What?” I ask, confused and taken aback.

  He exhales, looking at me again. “So many things, Brooklyn. So many fucking things, one being that I didn’t realize you hooked up with him that recently, I thought it was a teenage relationship, I don’t know. I swear life has a way of taking a shit on your parade just when you think you have it all figured out. No more Shea,” he says, a demand.

  “He’s a good friend,” I say, secretly reveling in the way my insides flip flop at his tone and his words.

  “You’re not going to fall in his bed again?” he asks, his jaw clenching at the words.

  “Never,” I say quickly, knowing that’s over for good.

  “Good,” Nick replies. “I hated seeing his hands all over you last night. I swear I don’t know what I’d do if I had to go through that again. He’s my boy and all but … I just … no more Shea, Brooklyn.”

  “Yes sir,” I reply with a smile, loving that he actually cares enough to be territorial over me. Nina would totally hate this, but I love it, I’ve never felt this wanted.