“You don’t have to do that,” he says, voice hoarse.
“I know,” I say, as I’m getting on my knees. My fingers are on his belt and I flip us around so he’s leaning against the door now. I can feel how hard he is through his jeans, and I stroke him, and he makes a sound I don’t think I’ve ever heard before—dark and desperate and erotic. And I haven’t even touched his skin yet.
Tugging on his belt, I slip his pants down until his cock springs free, huge and hard, the tip glistening so close. I look up at Peter, and he has his hands spread, grabbing the top of the stall and his knuckles are white. He’s keeping himself still, so still, waiting for my next move. I give him a big smile and press my lips to his skin, purposely sliding my lips across it and leaving a mark. One side and then the other, so there are purple smudges on his shaft.
It’s hotter than I thought it would be. I kiss the tip of his cock too, leaving a purple set of lips, and smile again. “Is this what you imagined?”
All I get is a groan, and I laugh as I take him into my mouth. He’s thick and hard in my mouth and he feels so familiar and so different. Definitely bigger than the last time I did this, but the memories come sliding back, and my body remembers what he likes.
I slowly take more of him and more of him until he’s almost completely in my mouth, because I’ve learned some new tricks too.
"Jesus, Amber," Peter says, voice strained and raw.
I only hum in response, and that gets me another groan. I pull back, sucking my way back to the tip, because I know that he loves that, and I love the feeling of his skin on my lips. But I plunge down again before I release him, setting a rhythm of fast down, slow back, listening to the way Peter gasps as he hits the back of my throat.
I'm great at blowjobs, but I want more. I've never been a good at deep-throating a cock, but I'm just drunk enough that I don't care. The next time I dive down onto his cock, I don't stop. I move up and down, angling myself so that he slips down into my throat, and suddenly Peter's hands are in my hair and he's cursing under his breath as he holds on. His hips are moving, thrusting, but slowly, gently, and I know that he's trying to hold himself back. I release him, hauling in a breath, and I look up. "You can," I say. "You can fuck my mouth."
He pulls me to my feet with a growl and I'm against the door again, his mouth on my skin. "I'm going to do that. But I'm going to do that when I can take my time and enjoy it. And you're going to enjoy it too," he says in a tone that has me dripping. "But I haven't touched you in three days and I'm going to fuck you now. And then I'm going to take you home and fuck you again."
I can't breathe, gasping as he licks down my throat, nipping at my skin and pushes my dress aside so he can touch my breasts, dipping his mouth to taste me and holding me still until my nipples are hard and pebbled under his tongue. I push my hips into him. "I thought you were going to fuck me."
He grins, "I didn't say I couldn't have a little fun." He runs his tongue across my nipple one more time, slowly, his eyes meeting mine, and I shiver. "Turn around," he says, and I do.
I grab onto the top of the stall, and Peter flips up my skirt, running his hands over my ass. I'm not wearing anything but a thong, but I wish I hadn't worn anything at all. His fingers dip inside my panties and I moan because his fingers slip across my entrance and my clit because I'm so wet. There's a crinkle of a condom, and Peter pulls my hips back towards him, so my arms are stretched to keep my balance and he pushes in, barely giving me time to breathe.
"Oh shit," I say, because even though it's only been three days it feels like a lifetime and I feel like it's perfect. I'm fucking Peter Holleman in a bathroom stall and it's the best moment of my life. And he is fucking me, thrusting hard and fast and deep and oh god it feels so good. Slick friction, perfect, pleasure rising, I close my eyes and feel, letting him push me closer to the door until I'm trapped between him and it, and I can't move and I don't want to move, and now I'm that girl saying yes yes yes while the bathroom is echoing with the sounds of sex.
And that's when Peter's hand slips into my panties again, and he circles my clit with his fingers. I'm so wet that he keeps slipping, pressing harder, and every touch takes me higher, makes me wetter. Suddenly my orgasm is rising like a wave out of nowhere, zero-to-sixty and I'm moaning, and I can barely find the words in my brain to tell him that I'm there. "Please," I say. "I'm close."
"Me too."
His other arm wraps around my waist while he teases me, holding me against him while he fucks me, and then suddenly I'm coming, and it feels like the world goes white. I throw my head back, my cry echoing off the walls, and I’m shaking while pleasure blazes through me, bright and perfect and sizzling and gone all too fast. And seconds later Peter's coming too, groaning into my neck. "God, yes, Amber."
He doesn't let me go, and we come to stillness with his fingers still on my clit and his cock still buried to the hilt. "That was..."
"Amazing," he finishes for me.
"I don't want to move."
The dark chuckle that comes from him leaves shivers on my skin. “There’s more where that came from, we just have to get out of here.”
We’re still entwined, and I’m very aware of how much he’s filling me up. “Any more awkward conversations we have to have before we can leave?”
He laughs again. “No, I think we’re in the clear.”
“Good.”
Slipping out of me, he gets another moan, and my arousal flares, because I want more. “Greedy?” he asks, mouth on my skin again.
“Yes,” I say, fixing my dress. “Yes. And fast.”
“Okay, I’ll get the car.”
I grab my bag from the hook off the door. “You need to wipe your mouth, and I need to fix my lipstick. But you leave first, and I’ll follow.”
“Good,” he says, but before I leave the stall he grabs me around the waist again and whispers in my ear. “I’m very happy we made up.”
“I want to make up more very quickly, so let’s get out of here.”
Peter laughs. “As you wish.”
He grabs a paper towel and quickly scrubs the signs of my lips on his away, and for the second time tonight I redo my lipstick, fixing the smudges on my skin and re-applying.
I kind of like the smudged look, if only because right now I like that I look mussed and tousled and like I just had sex. If it weren’t you know…for my career, I’d leave it and wear it proudly. I’m not sure that my sober self would agree, but I don’t care.
When my lipstick is in the best shape I can get it, I toss my hair a couple times and leave the bathroom. I nearly run into Clay who’s dancing on the edge of the crowd. He smiles at me, and I hope he didn’t see Peter exit the bathroom only minutes before. I should be worried about that, or ashamed that I just had sex in a bathroom, but I’m not.
I give him a wave and a smile and weave my way through the crowd towards the door. I make it through the restaurant and onto the street just as the car Peter called is pulling up—neither of us are in any shape to drive. He opens the door and helps me inside, and I’m waiting for him to get in, but he doesn’t. He whispers. “Give him my address,” and I understand. There are paparazzi here, and we can’t be seen getting into a car together drunk. This photo is just him putting me into a cab, and it will never make the papers.
I nod, “I’ll see you soon.”
Peter shuts the door, and I give the driver his address, practically counting down the seconds until I get there.
13
Peter
Past
Restaurant work is the same everywhere. Customers want the same kind of perfect service, your cheeks still ache from smiling, and it's just as utterly exhausting, even though this restaurant is in L.A. Somehow I thought that it might be different here, since this is the city of Angels and what I've wanted forever, I imagined being a waiter would be less of a slog. But it's okay, because I'm here. Half of my tiny, crappy, apartment is still in boxes and I have basically no money and no idea wha
t I'm doing, but I'm here.
It was actually easier to move after my mom robbed me. I had way less stuff to move, and after that I couldn't stay. Aunt Lily was awesome and reached out to friends across the country to get me places to stay while I drove from coast to coast, everything I owned shoved into my car. She even gave me some money for the trip, though I told her that she didn't have to do that.
I found an apartment online and I slept for fifteen hours once I crashed there. But once I woke up, I started looking for jobs. If there's one thing I know, it's that people want attractive waiters and I'm not stupid—I know I'm not ugly. So that's why I'm waiting on tables right now, dead on my feet but with more tip money in my pocket than I ever had in Massachusetts. Even with the difference in cost of living, I'll be able to feed myself for more than a week just on the tips. That's good.
Walking back into the kitchen, I submit an order slip to the chef, and my manager comes out of her office and points. "You."
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever tended bar?"
I shake my head. "No, I haven't."
"You want to learn?"
The pay for bartenders is way better, and the tips too, I imagine. "Sure."
"Great," she says. "Come here."
I follow her into her office and she hands me some paperwork. "It's dumb but you have to fill out the papers again for a different position. What's your name again?"
"Peter."
She calls out of her office door. "Jackson, cover Peter's tables for a few minutes." There's a muffled response while I start filling out my information and my new address. "One of my bartenders just quit. I need a new one fast."
"Are you sure about me?" I ask, kicking myself for doing so. "There are people higher than I am, who probably have more experience."
"Most of my servers have been here long enough to like what they're doing. We get a lot of regulars here, and they know what to do to get good tips with those people. Besides, it’s good to have both male and female bartenders. Joan is great, she'll get your ass into shape, and a lot of women won't notice that their drink isn't perfect as long as you serve it with a smile on that pretty face."
I laugh. "So you're just using me for my body?"
"Basically," she smirks. "But you also said you'd prefer to work at night so you can go to auditions during the day. This works better for that."
"Thanks."
"No problem," she says. "Just don't suck, okay?"
"I'll do my best not to." I hand the papers back to her.
She flips through them to make sure that I didn't miss anything. "Don't take any more tables, and when you're done, go see Joan. She'll get you started with training so you're not completely drowning tomorrow."
"Will do."
"Oh, and Peter," she says as I stand and head for the door, "welcome to L.A."
"Thanks," I give her the kind of smile she hopes to see from me as a bartender and she laughs.
I wasn't expecting this, but it's great. This will work out way better for me and my schedule, and I think bartending will be fun. You're still serving, but there's less of a sense of obligation. I won't be groveling for tips the way you have to when waiting on a single table. It's better because people come to you, tell you what they want, and for the most part, that's the end of the transaction.
This isn't the kind of place they show in movies where the hero or heroine who's down on their luck comes in to spill their problems to the understanding bartender. No, this is an upscale place where the rich and sometimes the famous come to mingle. No one would dare shed a tear at the bar for fear that someone else would see and it would get around.
This is going to be perfect.
I finish all my tables and head to the back, where I know Joan is doing her monthly inventory of bar supplies and deciding what to order. She's classically pretty, tall with dark hair, and a vintage smile that makes drinks taste better and wallets open. She waves me toward her when she hears the door open. "So you're the newbie."
"Seems like I am."
"Well, sit," she says, tossing a clipboard to me. "It's easier to do this with two people when I can just say things and you write them down instead of me having to do both. Hell of a lot faster too."
"Okay."
And that's it for a while. I follow the pattern she's used on the form and write down what she tells me, and it's only a half-hour before the inventory is done completely. "When's your first shift with me?"
"Tomorrow."
"Good. Go home and google the basic drinks and memorize the recipes. Come in early and I'll test you on some of them and make corrections. Trust me, neither you or I have the time to just stand together while I spit out recipes that are on the internet. And you're an actor. I'm sure that memorizing shit doesn't take that much time for you."
I laugh. "You're right."
"Of course I am. And don't wear what you're wearing, wear something sexier."
"You have something in mind?"
She rolls her eyes but she smiles. "No. I'm not going to pick out your clothes for you, newbie. Just try something that fits the dress code and do some testing. Keep wearing what gets you tips, and don't be squeamish about it."
"Squeamish?" I hand her the clipboard so she can check my work.
"High and mighty. Prudish. Too good for it."
I internally pause, but I just say. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.”
Grabbing my stuff from my locker, I head out to my car. I can see what she means, I can imagine a lot of people new to L.A. would be a bit nervous about so blatantly being asked to use their body like that. It’s been less than an hour and I’ve basically been told twice that I need to be sexy in order to get people to pay me more. I can’t imagine what kind of stuff gets said to female service workers.
I wonder what Amber would do—
I close off the thought as soon as I have it. I’m here, and we’re not together. I need to stop pretending that we are. Even if this was our dream, it can’t be anymore. Now it’s just my dream.
Driving across town, I roll down my windows and feel the warm breeze coming off the Pacific. This sure beats the cold of the east coast any day. Hands down. It’s like coming here after so long, finally I feel like I belong somewhere. The city sings to me in a way that no other place has, and I love it. There’s a relief to being here, an easing of tension that I never noticed I held.
Even as I flop onto my mattress that doesn’t have a bed frame and is surrounded by boxes, I’m smiling. I finally made it.
14
Peter
Present
I get into my own cab and pull out my phone, and I text Amber the code to my door so she’s not standing on the steps of my house until I get there. But the whole ride, I can’t seem to sit still. My leg is bouncing up and down, and even the driver seems to notice how fidgety I am. He keeps glancing back at me in the mirror.
Now that Amber and I are together, I don’t want to be separate. Every second that she’s not with me feels like I’m burning. It could be because I’m a little drunk. Possibly that. I’m a little drunk on her and the sex that we just had and the sex that we’re about to have. It was amazing and it didn’t even scratch the surface.
I let my head fall back against the seat, reliving every moment of that. I’m hard again just thinking about it. And thinking about what we might do now. Every fantasy I’ve had about Amber spirals out in my head, and I want to tell her every single one and see how she feels about them. And I want her to tell me her fantasies too, so I can drive her wild.
We need to be more careful. Having sex in the bathroom probably wasn’t the smartest move since we’re trying to keep this secret, but I can’t bring myself to care enough to be worried. But from now on, I promise to be more careful. Houses only. Or maybe my trailer.
Yes. My trailer. The thought of fucking Amber in my trailer with the whole crew right outside directs the remaining blood in my body to my cock and I have to grit my teeth to keep from groaning. I glance outs
ide, almost there. Almost there.
My phone screen lights up, and Amber’s texted that she’s there. Inside. Waiting. Seconds later there’s a picture of her dress on the floor of my entryway, and I have to pick my jaw up off the floor of the car.
Almost there.
She sends a winking face back.
I start the transaction to pay the driver as we’re pulling into my driveway, so I can leave the car faster. “Thanks,” I call to him as I slam the door, taking the steps to my house three at a time. I only pause for a second to make sure the driver actually drives away before entering my code and going inside. And there on the floor is Amber’s dress. A little farther into the hall are both of her shoes, and just peeking out from around the corner, her thong is on the floor.
Fuck.
I kick off my shoes and undress on my way to the bedroom, my hand already stroking my cock as I walk in to find her naked and waiting. She’s facing away from me, glancing over her shoulder at me, wiggling her ass.
“You’re evil,” I say with a grin.
“I couldn’t have you forgetting me on the way home.”
Striding over to the bed, I grab her foot and pull her to me, and her giggle lights me up inside. “I could never forget you, Amber.”
I’m over her now, and I see her face sober for a moment. “I could never forget you either.”
I kiss her, and I hope that that sexy purple lipstick gets everywhere on me. It’s still on my cock, and I like it. I can practically still feel her tongue on me. Now that we’re here, things have to slow down. I still have that urgency to fall fast and hard into each other, but I can resist it. Take my time. “I have one problem,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“I have so many things that I want to do to you, that I can’t decide.”
She squirms underneath me, and for a few seconds I can’t even think. “I can think of a few things that would solve that problem,” she says, reaching down to touch me. Her fingers bring my focus straight downwards, and just the barest brush of them feels amazing.
For Us: The Girl I Loved Page 8
