by Tracey Ward
“Yes,” she squeaks.
“Can you lick ‘em?”
She moans in agreement. And she knows it.
“That’s two,” she tells me firmly. “Your turn.”
“But can you lick yourself?”
“You’ll have to pay up to find out.”
“Fuck,” I grumble. My body is amped up. I’m wound so tight listening to her I forgot about my side of things. I need to get it over with to get back to her. “Don’t stop doing what you’re doing.”
“I won’t, but you better start talking.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Something real.”
“Not much of my life is real.”
“You’ll figure something out.”
I scrub my hand over my thigh thoughtfully. It bumps my dick bobbing erect and eager in the water. I take hold of it, running my hand up and down it slowly. I’m picturing her. Imagining her. I’m fucking her tits as she stares up at me with those wide, doe eyes full of excitement. Full of need. It sends a surge of power through my body to do that to a girl like Greer. She’s so hesitant, like a wild animal, but in my hands she’s open and exposed as the sun. She’s light, she’s warmth, and I want inside her so I can feel it on my skin, just for a second; even if it’s only in my mind.
“I haven’t celebrated my birthday in eight years.”
Greer pauses, shocked. “What? No, but you had that party earlier this year in Cabo. I remember because you got arrested and they weren’t sure you could get back into the country.”
“That wasn’t on my birthday. My real birthday is in December, but the studio said it was too close to Christmas. They moved it to June so they could run sales and schedule releases around it that wouldn’t conflict with Christmas.”
“That’s messed up.”
“That’s the biz, baby. Now seriously, can you lick your nipples?”
She laughs, the sound echoing in the room around her.
“I’m not kidding. Back to business. Can you—”
“Yes.”
My skin tingles excitedly. “Then that’s what I’m doing. I’m licking you as you tickle yourself.”
“Yes.”
“One finger, Greer. I slide one finger inside your lips.”
She gasps. “Yes.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Hot. Wet.”
I groan in the back of my throat. My hand grips my dick harder. “I’m spreading you open. I’m looking for your clit. Do I find it?”
She whimpers faintly. “Yes.”
“I rub you hard. Fast. You’re begging me not to stop.”
“No,” she pleads. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“I wanna hear you, baby. Let me hear you.”
Her body thrashes in the water. I imagine her hips rising and falling to meet her fingers on her clit. To meet me pushing at her entrance.
“Oh God,” she mewls. “Ahhh.”
“So beautiful.”
“It feels so good. So hot.”
“I keep at it. I don’t let up but I don’t let you come either. I move my hand down your pussy and I’m pushing my dick against it. I’m about to slide inside you.”
Greer gasps, her breath hiccupping in the back of her throat, and I know she’s there. She’s ready.
“Two fingers,” I tell her urgently. My hand pauses on my cock, waiting for the right moment. “I want you to push two fingers inside you and I want you to think about me. Imagine me inside your wet pussy, hard and fast. Do it now.”
She groans low and feral in her throat as she pushes her fingers inside her body. I pump my dick as I listen to her, and I swear to God I can feel her. I close my eyes, picturing her on top of me, and she’s amazing. Her wet body glistening, her breasts bouncing as she collapses on top of me, taking me in to the hilt. My grip on reality and my phone slip. I’m somewhere else, in a place where her moans in my ear are from her lips against my skin. Where her walls are tight around me, milking me for all the pleasure I can give her.
I pump my arm harder. “We’re going hard, Greer. Your body is banging against mine. The water is everywhere but I don’t give a shit. All I can think about is you and your body on mine.”
“Oh God,” she moans. “You’re deep. So deep. It hurts.”
“You love it.”
“I want it. I want it to hurt,” she whimpers. “Make it hurt, Jace.”
“Fuck,” I groan, amazed by her. By this sweet, tiny thing that’s talking dirty as shit to me. That’s begging me to give it to her, to make us both ache with it. I’m drowning in it and I’m loving it and the most incredible part is that I’m engaged. I’m in this one hundred percent, focused on her and me and the feeling of what could be. Not just this moment, but the promise of others to come.
I’m high on the hope of her.
“You feel amazing,” I tell her ardently. “You’re beautiful. Perfect. Your body is so fucking perfect the way it hugs me.”
Water thrashes over my arm as I use my hand to plunge in and out of her in my mind. It mingles with her whimpers and cries.
“Make me come, Jace,” she pleads. “Please!”
“I will, baby. I will. I’m sucking your nipple and I’m tweaking your clit and I’m inside you, Greer. Do you feel me?”
“I feel you everywhere,” she cries. She’s getting close.
“I’m bare. Nothing there but you and me, your wet, hot body so slick and tight. I’m going to lose it inside you and I won’t even be sorry. I’ll want you again the second I come.” I wince, my body seizing up excitedly. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
“I’m burning up. I’m burning.”
“Do it,” I tell her, letting myself go too. “Do it. I’m with you. Yeah, shit, I’m with you!”
I bite down on my groans as I shoot my load into the tub. My body goes rigid and limp all at once, leaving me dizzy. Leaving me disoriented, unsure what just happened. Unsure how just the thought of her made me come that hard. Despite my desperate confusion, I stay quiet. I silence myself inside and out so I can drink in the sound of her release. Her throaty moans, her mewls. They’re music to my ears.
“Greer?” I call quietly, my voice low and rough. Spent.
She takes a second to answer. “Yeah?”
“I’m really glad I gave you that phone.”
She laughs, and I feel like I could come all over again. “Me too.”
“We’re compromising again tomorrow.”
“You feel like you’re gonna need another bath tomorrow?”
“I’m a very dirty boy.”
“Yes, you are,” she agrees happily.
I grin. “And you’re a surprisingly dirty girl.”
She chuckles quietly. “You bring out the worst in me, Jace Ryker.”
“And you bring out the best in me, Greer Madsen.”
She doesn’t reply. She does that, I’m noticing. I wonder if it’s to keep herself from lying.
“You owe me,” she finally reminds me, not touching my previous statement. “You got a lot of moans for free.”
“Send me a bill.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
There’s a silence between us for a long time. I wonder what she’s thinking. What she’s doing. Me, I’m coming down. I’m getting my bearings and becoming aware that I’m in a bathtub turning cold, marinating in my own juices.
I suddenly feel like I need a shower.
“I should go,” I tell her gently. “I have a room full of people waiting to tell me to stay away from women.”
She chuckles. “That’s going to be an awkward conversation, considering.”
“Considering we just compromised ourselves to completion?”
“That. Yeah.”
“It was worth it.”
“It was,” she agrees quietly. “It was definitely worth it.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Keep your phone with you.”
“I’ll put it on vibrate,” sh
e promises cheekily.
I grin. “That’s my dirty girl.”
***
“This girl is trouble,” Sarah snaps, throwing a magazine down on the table between us.
I glance down at it. I’m not surprised to see Greer and I on the cover together. We’re coming out of the studio, my hand on her back and her small body tucked in close to me. She didn’t do well with the photographers. She wasn’t ready for how aggressive they are. I made sure to get her into the car quickly, but they still got plenty of shots of us together.
“She’s literally nobody,” Grant argues. “She has no history. She’s not going to be a problem.”
“He’s fucking one of his dancers again! This shit is exactly how we got to the place we’re in! Because he can’t keep his dick in his pants!”
“I’m not sleeping with her,” I argue. I’m pissed that I have to have this discussion. It’s none of their business. “I know you want me to lay low, but damn. I’m still a man. Let me have my life.”
“You don’t get to have a life. You sold the world your life years ago. And right now, the world wants you to stop fucking everything in sight! At least let the last scandal blow over before you kick off the newest one.”
“What scandal? We did a background check. She passed the drug test. She’s a saint as far as we can tell.”
Sarah shakes her head, her lips pulled tightly together. “No one is a saint. No. One. She has triggers, we just haven’t found them yet.”
“What kind of triggers?”
“I don’t know, but when we find them they could detonate all of this all over again. And we can’t keep recovering, Jace. Especially with you not working.”
I stand up, my anger in my muscles propelling me forward. “Are you for real? Work is all I do. Meetings, rehearsals, tours, not to mention the charities and appearances. I barely sleep. I hardly eat.”
“You barely work. Where’s the new album? That’s what we’re all wondering when we’re not busy asking why you can’t stop fucking everything. Where’s the new album?”
“I’ve been working on it.”
“You haven’t sat down behind a piano in five months.”
I freeze, my blood boiling. I look at Grant sitting on my right. He meets my eyes calmly. He shows no remorse for selling me out.
“She needed to know, man,” he tells me evenly. “There’s a whole team that works on you, you know that. And we all need to know what’s up.”
“And what is that, Grant? What did you decide is up with me?”
“You’re not creating anymore. You haven’t since your mom died.”
“Then what do you think I’ve been doing for the last year?”
“Destroying,” he answers immediately, the unabashed sorrow in his voice like a punch to my face. “You’re destroying yourself, Ryker. You’re destroying yourself as a person and you’re destroying yourself as an icon. You’re tearing everything down and there’s nothing behind it to take its place. You keep it up, and there’ll be a black hole where your world used to be.”
I snort derisively, taking a step back. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I wish to God I was, but I’m not. We all see it.”
I shake my head in angry disgust, spitting, “You don’t see shit.”
I shove the door open, banging it off the wall with a loud crash! as I storm into the hall.
I leave the hotel. I get onto the streets and I realize I’m doing what I did the night Lexy yanked my pants down. It was another night in another place when I was exposed. When everyone saw more of me than I wanted them to. That’s why I’m running. I’m too tired for metaphors so that’s literally what I do. I start running. I run across the street to Central Park. I make it onto the path leading me deeper inside the massive oasis in the middle of the city, and I start to breathe. Hard and fast with my footfalls, my feet bare, my shoes forgotten in my rage. I find a rhythm my body likes. I fall into it, going into a trance. Going numb. I forget everything but the feel of the path under my feet and the air in my lungs.
I run until my legs are jelly. Until my feet are bruised and bleeding. Until I run out of park and I have to turn around to run the length of it again. Until my phone starts buzzing in my pocket and reality starts calling again. It’s always waiting for me, no matter how hard I try to avoid it. I can’t get away from it. But maybe I can get it away from me. Just for a minute.
I throw my phone in the lake as I pass it. The ring distorts as it flies through the air, going silent forever when it hits the surface of the water. I don’t wait to watch it sink. I don’t stop to consider what I’ve done. I turn my back on it. I let it die alone in the cold black water.
And I run.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Greer
This is why I don’t have a phone. Because when you have a phone and a crush, you have a problem. You have to moderate yourself. You can’t text them every giddy, girly thought that comes into your head. You can’t even text them every dirty, depraved thought that slinks through your mind. You have to be smart. You have to be careful. And you have to tell yourself not to lose your shit when they don’t text you either. Or call you. Even after they said they would.
“I can’t get over you with that phone,” Cam chuckles.
He’s smiling down at me where I’m parked on the floor of his dressing room. Rendezvous is starting in thirty minutes. I’m ready to go physically, but mentally I’m inside the phone I keep flipping in my hand. And sometimes I’m inside the bathtub with Jace – the real Jace Ryker – and my mind can’t handle it. I’ve almost told Cam a thousand times, but there’s no good way to start that conversation. There’s no lead-in to that story so I’ve kept it to myself. And myself is enjoying telling it over and over again. Every slick, gasping, dripping, burning second of it.
I smile thinly, hiding my anxiety. “Yeah, I’m still getting used to it.”
“I’m not even going to ask what strings came attached with it.”
“None.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I smack him hard on the back, making him jump. “I’m not gonna prostitute myself for a phone!”
Wait, am I? Did I already?
“No one said you would!”
“You implied it!”
“Why are we yelling?!” Cam shouts.
“I don’t know!” I laugh. I lower my voice and my temper. “It felt good to do it, though.”
“It kind of did. We need to do that more often.”
“Yelling Thursdays. It’s a thing now.”
“That’ll make the show more interesting.”
“They’ll definitely hear us in the rafters.”
Cam smiles as he checks himself in the mirror. He looks perfect. He was made for this part, and it breaks my heart to think that soon he won’t be playing it anymore. It’s how I’ve known him for the last two years. Since we met he’s been either auditioning, workshopping, or performing as David Anders in Rendezvous. It’s like a part of him I can’t separate from the man I know. I don’t want to, but that’s what’s going to have to happen. Things are going to change, drastically and soon. It gives me chills just thinking about it.
“He said he was going to call today and he didn’t,” I confess to Cam, venting some of my frustration. I can’t keep it all inside me, I’ll be sick, so I release what I can. I wipe my fingers over the screen on the phone, cleaning it compulsively. “I’m kind of freaking out about that.”
“Day’s not over.”
“It’s almost seven o’clock. It’s mostly over.”
“I wouldn’t stress it.”
“Oh, okay,” I reply sarcastically.
Cam frowns down at me. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you? You’re geeking out about a guy.”
“I’m not geeking out.”
“You’re acting crazy. You haven’t set that phone down all day. I thought it was because you like having it, but it’s because you’re waiting for him to call, isn’t it?”
I grimace, disgusted with myself. “Maybe.”
Cam laughs. “This is awesome.”
“It’s torture!”
“I’m sure for you it is. For me it’s awesome.”
“Stop enjoying this.”
“I can’t. You’re into a guy. Like really into him. Not running away from him or telling him he has too many hairs on his temple and that’s a deal breaker for you.”
My shoulders drop impatiently. “I never broke up with a guy over temple hair.”
“You said Brian’s hairline was ‘aggressive’.” He rises, pointing at me accusingly. “That’s a direct quote.”
“Shut up.”
There’s a knock on the door. “Cam, it’s time.”
“Thanks, Jenny. I’ll be right out,” Cam calls through the door. He looks down at me with a satisfied grin on his face, his hands outstretched.
I let him lift me off the floor, glaring at him. “Stop looking so smug.”
“Stop being so funny and I will.”
“I’m not being funny.”
“You’re freaking, I know. I see it. But it’s good. It means you’re getting attached to somebody for once. I’m proud of you.”
I roll my eyes, dropping my phone on the table. I glance at it one last time, hoping for a miracle. No such luck. It stays dark and silent.
I follow Cam out of the dressing room. We make our way down the hall to the area backstage that’s bustling with life on mute. I can hear the audience on the other side. They chatter happily until the lights start to dim. They bring the din down with them until the entire house is quiet for one breathless second. The orchestra will come to life soon. Cam will take the stage, a spotlight following him tightly. A world will be born, live, and die in a matter of hours, but for now there’s silence. There’s energy unrealized, a promise of what’s to come.
It’s my favorite part of the show. I wait in the wings, drinking it in breathlessly. Savoring it, like a delicious meal. Like a warm blanket. Like a rough voice in my ear.
