Degrees of Control

by Eve Dangerfield

  Charlie felt her face burn. “You’re making me sound like a complete weirdo, but yes, he was into it.”

  Jordan slapped the table. “Ha, knew it. I saw you two dancing. He looked like he wanted to eat you alive.”

  Charlie squirmed in her seat. “What we did was pretty incredible,” she admitted, and Sophia and Jordan exchanged triumphant looks.

  “So what went wrong? Did James push too hard?” Sophia asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “No, we clicked. We were leaving together, actually. But right at the door we ran into some drunk assholes who had to congratulate James on landing a prize salmon such as myself.”

  Charlie was trying her best to be light-hearted but she knew her cringe was giving her away. Every time she felt threatened she hunched over to hide her breasts, which didn’t work, merely made her look like Quasimodo with massive tits.

  Jordan gently placed a hand on her hump. “What did James do? Did he tell them to fuck off?”

  “Um, no he kind of laughed. That’s what killed my sexy mood.”

  Jordan hissed like an angry tabby. “That’s gross. I know you’re into mean guys but there’s no reason for him to treat you like a blow-up doll.”

  “I know but I think assholishness might be an occupational hazard with dominant alpha types. If we’d made it out the door without running into Sweat Patches, things might have been different…”

  Sophia pressed a hand to her cheek. “I failed you, Charlie. I worked so hard to find you what you wanted and I forgot to factor in James’ assholishness.”

  Charlie smiled. “Don’t stress, Soph, Operation Man-Draft was forty percent effective.”

  Her friends looked at her eagerly. “We did some sex stuff in your bathroom,” Charlie confessed.

  “How was it?”

  “How big is he?”

  Choosing to answer the first question, Charlie recounted the events of the bathroom until her friends’ eyes were the size of hubcaps.

  Sophia smiled. “Wait. So what happened to your thong? I didn’t find anything this morning.”

  “Oh shit.” Charlie had been so blindsided by the orgasm-turned-hazing that she’d gone home underwear-less.

  Jordan grinned. “Bet James kept it, as a memento.”

  Sophia rolled her eyes. “I doubt it. The asshole was too wasted to pick up a hundred dollar bill. You know, he passed out in my guestroom even though he lives like two seconds away?”

  “Where is he now?” she asked, her feigned carelessness so transparent it was basically tissue paper.

  Sophia frowned. “I don’t know. He returned to the dank hole from whence he came, I guess. We’re not close at all.”

  “So, pray tell, how do you know what your cousin’s into sexually?” Jordan teased.

  Sophia flushed. “When I was in high school my friend Georgia got angry-drunk in my hot tub and told me James was into ‘fucked-up sex shit’.”

  Jordan’s eyes lit up. “Like what?”

  Sophia made a face. “I was sixteen and he was my cousin so I didn’t exactly push the matter. She implied dirty talk, getting tied up, that sort of thing. There have been other rumors as well. Either way I thought Charlie might be able to make the most of his sluttiness.”

  Their tea arrived and all three of them fell silent.

  Charlie turned Sophia’s words over in her head. What had Georgia meant by “fucked-up sex shit?” Handcuffs? Spanking? Putting on a ski mask and jumping out at people through plate glass windows? So many people’s desires sounded crude unless you were into the same thing…

  Jordan dumped stevia into her tea and stirred slowly. “I honestly wouldn’t care if your cousin was into pegging, Soph, he’s that gorgeous. Oh, sorry, Charlie.”

  Charlie scoffed. “I don’t think one bathroom encounter exactly makes us a couple. I doubt I’ll see him again.” Except in my waking fantasies.

  “Does he work in the city, Soph?” Charlie asked with the same phony, disinterested tone. I really need to work on that.

  Sophia didn’t seem to notice her obvious brown-nosing. “Yeah, he’s up in the financial district with me. He’s a suit for his daddy’s company.”

  Jordan snickered. “Oh, so he’s got family privilege like you?”

  “Excuse me, I do not work for my family. I was hired on my own merits.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still ‘old money’.”

  Sophia gave Charlie an awkward sidelong look. From what she had gleaned from her too-polite friend, the Hunter family made bucket-loads of money farming tobacco in the 1900s. They were still one of America’s largest distributors of cigarette fodder. Sophia was perpetually stressed people would discover the unpopular source of her family’s wealth and storm out of any given location in protest. It was time for a subject change.

  “So, does James get his looks from his dad?”

  Sophia flashed her a grateful smile. “Not exactly, James’ mom was a runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant. She’s the gorgeous one.”

  “I remember you telling me that,” Jordan exclaimed. “Holy fuck, is James the cousin who dated that underwear model?”

  As they dissolved into a discussion of James’ former partners, Charlie wrestled her own disappointment. Her hope of rekindling her sexual fling with James at Sophia’s wedding felt nine times more idiotic.

  He was the son of a beauty queen and a tobacco king. He nailed Victoria’s Secret models. She was the daughter of a bricklayer and a midwife. Victoria’s Secret didn’t even make bras in her size. There were twists on the classic love story and then there were the sad delusions of yoga teachers who needed to get a grip. It was time to put what happened on Saturday night to bed and move on.

  She raised her cup of green tea and cleared her throat. “Thank you, ladies, first for helping me articulate my desires and then helping me get off with a bossy, cowboy type. May he be the first of many.”

  She spoke with a bravado she didn’t feel, but apparently it was authentic enough to get Sophia and Jordan to tap their teacups against hers.

  Damn, maybe I’m a better actor than I thought?

  Chapter 4

  God, James wished he could remember her name.

  The last time he’d left a party with a girl and nothing happened it was because the chick was rushed to the emergency room, but Blue-Eyes hadn’t downed a bottle of Cointreau in thirty minutes, she’d just rejected him out of hand. Left him gaping in Sophia’s driveway like an idiot.

  Despite the invitation, he hadn’t planned on going to his cousin’s party. Dealing with his family was a nightmare and he had better offers elsewhere, but Ray’s bachelor party was cancelled and after a long shitty week he felt like blowing off steam. Sophia’s house wasn’t Sin City but it beat sitting at home.

  The party had actually been pretty decent. He’d caught up with a few guys from work, met Sophia’s surprisingly normal fiancé and was thinking about heading on to the dance floor to pursue one of the tall model-types floating around when suddenly she was blinking up at him. Goddamn, he wished he could remember her fucking name. When Sophia introduced her the only thing his brain absorbed was her big, luscious mouth. How was a man supposed to care about a name when a girl had lips like they were made for sucking? And that wasn’t all about Blue-Eyes that was made for sucking. He didn’t know where a girl with such a tiny waist stole those pin-up girl tits from, but it didn’t matter. The thought of rubbing them through her silky-looking dress had filled his head until he couldn’t process anything else. He wanted that heart-shaped ass underneath him, he wanted it real bad.

  Unfortunately, after they hit the dance floor, everything got real vague, real fast. He hadn’t exactly been pacing himself and his last whiskey, the one he intended to give to her, tipped him right over the edge. He remembered the way she’d gone from hesitant to damn near rubbing herself off on his leg. Recalled touching her in Sophia’s bathroom, the tops of her thighs so wet they were slippery, but he had no idea what had made those silver heels click away
from him.

  When he woke up on Sunday afternoon his first thought was of her. He had no idea where the fuck he was, but he could remember her mouth, her breathy little cries and her hot little pussy. After she’d bailed, he’d taken a redhead into that bathroom and fucked her over the sink, but that had been as forgettable as keg beer. Getting off, pure and simple, with no games beyond trying to unravel a condom half-cut. But despite the fact that he’d gotten laid, Blue-Eyes lingered on his tongue like fifty-year-old whiskey. He thought about Blue-Eyes in the shower, while he was eating the disgusting cereal Sophia dumped in front of him. He couldn’t get her out of his head. The working week had commenced and still Blue-Eyes wouldn’t quit. She spread her legs for him in meetings, urged him to fuck her at the gym, and pleaded with him whenever he was jerking off. He was walking around all lightheaded and semi-hard, his mind full of all the games he could play with her hot little body.

  James wasn’t an idiot, he knew not having her was making him want it more, but he couldn’t tell that to his aching balls. Blue-Eyes had kick-started urges he’d put aside for too long. Now they were in full flight, howling for a girl he couldn’t name. Finally, he bit the bullet and called Sophia on his lunch break.

  No matter what time of the day he spoke to his cousin, he always pictured her in her gleaming office, passing down orders from on high. She might look like Barbie but Sophia was a bloodthirsty Hunter through and through. James was amazed she even let him near her friend.

  “What can I do for you, James? You need financial advice?”

  Like his brother Will, Sophia went to Harvard Business School. And also like Will she never let him forget it. “I’m calling about the friend you introduced me to the other night…” James let his voice trail off, hoping she’d fill in the blanks without prompting.

  “You mean my fiancé Simon?”

  Of course she wasn’t going to make this easy. “I mean the Australian girl with the blue eyes. What’s her deal?”

  There was a long, aggravated pause.

  “Charlie’s deal is that she was going to go home with you, until some Animal House douchebags talked about her like she was a prostitute and she left.”

  Oh fuck, that Paul guy. What the hell did he say to her? And what did I say to her?

  “Uh, hello?”

  James grimaced. “Look, I’m not sure what went down, but—wait, Charlie? Ain’t that a man’s name?”

  “It’s an abbreviation of Charlotte. Charlotte Bell. Why do you even care?”

  Charlotte. That was more like it. Miss Blue-Eyes was a Charlotte if ever he saw one. Pretty and sweet. The kind of girl that should have a parasol and hair ribbons. “I want to ask her out. You mind passing her number along?”

  His cousin laughed like a Bond villain. “Not a snowflakes chance in hell, James.”

  The Hunters were one fucked-up family; stubborn, proud with a whole mess of issues, but goddamn, Sophia was supposed to be one of the normal ones. “Don’t be like that, Hopper, play nice.”

  Sophia’s laughing halted. “Don’t call me that, James.”

  “Then tell me what I want to know, Hopper.”

  Sophia snarled. “Okay, fine. You wanna know what happened? You were man drafted. Charlie’s on the rebound. She wanted to fuck a guy who was bad news and I suggested, among others, yourself.”

  “Seriously?” James stepped aside to avoid a bike messenger. “Christ, Sophia, I’m not a prostitute.”

  “I didn’t see you objecting when Charlie was willing to go home with you.”

  Good point. “Who else was included in this draft?”

  “Conner, Blair, Michael. Thirty-four others.”

  “And yet Miss Charlotte picked me. Don’t you think that warrants a phone number?”

  “Not really. I told her you were the sluttiest. Turns out that backfired.”

  James gritted his teeth, this was ten times more stressful than his last meeting. “Well, give me Charlotte’s number and I can apologize for whatever I did to offend.”

  Sophia snorted. “James, you can shove your apology up your ass. I am not teeing up my best friend as your booty call.”

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “Sounds like Charlotte’s after the same thing. Go on, let me be accommodating. I’ll take her out to somewhere fancy and we’ll chat. No big deal.”

  There was a long pause and James knew he’d won.

  “I will tell you this. Charlie works on High Street and tonight she’ll be in the Humble Ruby café at around six o’clock.”

  James was glad Sophia couldn’t see his face right now. If she knew how smug he looked, she’d claw that privileged information back out of his brain.

  “Thanks, Hopper, you’re a peach.”

  “Keep your southern fried bullshit to yourself. And know this, Charlie is the sweetest girl I’ve ever met and if you hurt her, or infect her with some kind of disease, you will die. Slowly.”

  She hung up on him. Clearly, taunting her about her childhood resemblance to a frog hadn’t been the smartest move.

  * * * *

  As James suspected, Humble Ruby was a dimly-lit corridor covered with hanging plants and bearded men, the kind of hipster place he normally avoided like the plague. But not today, today he was going to infiltrate this hippie hive, find Blue-Eyes, convince her to wrap herself around his dick and stop spending every second of his life picturing her with a bright red ass, begging him for release.

  He spotted her at once. She was sitting cross-legged in a booth talking excitedly to a guy in baggy cotton pants. She was softer than the girl from the party, prettier too. Her thick brown hair and wide eyes made her look like a China doll. Except for that body. Turns out her pin-up girl figure wasn’t an alcohol-induced hallucination. She was wearing some kind of exercise gear and it stretched over her curves like smoke, outlining her full breasts and tiny waist. Yeah, he’d be fucking her, there was going to be no two ways about that. She’d be nervous so he’d take her out, get her nice and relaxed and then he’d do every single dirty thing he could think of to her. Twice.

  Their eyes locked and Charlotte’s hand leapt to her hair, like a schoolgirl caught reading dirty magazines. Her expression sent a kick of adrenaline into James’ system. It was the same shy excitement that got him all hot and bothered the night they met. A flush made its way down Charlotte’s neck and into her gorgeous breasts and James knew she wanted him. He sauntered over, the challenge of winning this girl over burning low in his belly. “Hey there, Miss Charlotte,” he drawled, playing up the accent.

  She smiled. “Hey, James. What brings you to the neighborhood?”

  At least she wasn’t pretending she’d forgotten who he was, and if she was nervous, she was hiding it well, her smile was bright but reserved.

  “Sophia told me I might find you here. Buy you a coffee?”

  Harem Pants Guy looked like he was experiencing severe neck pain. No doubt he resented the interruption. That was too fucking bad. James gave him a few seconds of pointed eye contact until he scurried off with some made up excuse. James pulled himself into the vacant seat and examined the girl across from him. She wasn’t his usual type that was for sure. For one thing she was fucking tiny. Had she always been that short? But God, those lips were exactly like he remembered, he could just imagine them pouting at him, swollen and soft from sucking his cock.

  “What can I do for you, James?”

  He jolted back to reality and gave Charlotte his best smile. “Been to any good parties lately, Blue-Eyes?”

  She didn’t smile back. Just blinked at him like butter wouldn’t melt in her plush little mouth. She was about to reply when a pink-haired waitress came barreling over.

  “Hi, I’m Bea, can I take your order?”

  “Coffee and another of what she’s havin’. Thanks, darlin’.”

  The waitress’ cheeks turned as pink as her hair and she leaned across him to rearrange the menus, brushing her torso against his in the process. James leaned back into his chair.
He appreciated the effort but he was trying to impress Blue-Eyes and right now she was eyeing him with a smile he didn’t like one bit. Mercifully, the waitress left and James refocused on Charlotte. “Something funny?”

  She smiled her little smile. “Not really, I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here. Also, you look kind of weird in a hipster café.”

  James had to agree. The suit stuck out like a sore thumb. Whip-fast, Pink Hair returned with his coffee and a cup of what looked like swamp water. She dumped the latter in front of Charlotte with a smile so wide James could count her teeth. “How’s your boyfriend, Charlie? Does he still want to borrow my book on naturopathy?”

  The thought of Charlotte locking lips with the kind of scrappy hipster douchebags littered around this irritating café tasted worse than James’ coffee. His resentment toward their waitress intensified. Charlotte, however, just smiled and reached for the honey. “Dale and I broke up four weeks ago, Bea. I told you that when you asked if he wanted any leftover carrot cake.”

  The waitress gave a loud, unconvincing laugh no one responded to and an awkward silence reverberated around the table. Charlotte stirred her tea, James looked out of the window.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two alone then,” the waitress blurted out and left.

  “Strange girl,” James offered.

  Charlotte smiled. “Not really, I think she’s just making sure you know I’m on the rebound.”

  Cute as fuck and a straight shooter. Be still my beating heart.

  She touched the long silvery bag beside her. “Can I help you with something, James? I have a class in fifteen.”

  James was a little taken aback by her abruptness. “Just wanted to apologize for the way we ended things the other night.”

  Charlotte flushed. “Thanks for saying that, but don’t stress. It was no big deal.”

  He liked her accent. It was clipped and flat and she put the wrong emphasis on vowels. “Well, while I was apologizing, I wanted to ask you to dinner tomorrow night. You’re Australian, you like Outback Steakhouse?”

  Charlotte laughed, long and hard. Not what he’d been expecting. It continued for so long he started to get offended. “What?”