reputation

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  I stared, no longer able to move or speak voluntarily as his words mesmerized me. The way he spoke as he swayed our bodies was hypnotizing, tempting me with what I was afraid to believe.

  “Maybe I am broken.” The confession mumbled from my lips. With the music, there was no way he could hear what I said and yet somehow, he still knew.

  “Christ.” His eyes pinned mine. “You are not broken.”

  I nodded, but trying to swallow down my embarrassment was like trying to force a watermelon down my throat. Not pretty.

  “But you still don’t want me…” Always pushing. The moment was broken anyway.

  His mouth thinned, intent on ignoring my accusation. That was the thing about Zach. There were consequences… lines that couldn’t be crossed… for those that hurt me. Only, they didn’t apply to him.

  “You asked for my help, Baby Blake. I’m not going to let you ruin it.”

  My brow furrowed in confusion as I stared up into his smoldering, golden eyes. Someone bumped into me from behind—the couple that I’d been watching—and shoved me harder against him.

  “How am I ruining it?” Besides by being detrimentally attracted to him?

  “Christ,” he swore, locking his arms protectively around me. “You’re drunk and you were hanging off of Ronnie. People were starting to notice. If you thought being caught in Miami was bad, imagine the news tomorrow that you’ve decided to date through every member of the Zach Parker Project.”

  I froze as I processed his words. Blinking back through snapshots of the night, I knew he was right. I hadn’t been thinking.

  Why was I never thinking?

  One nod turned into several frantic ones and I heard him swear low under his breath. His fingers lifted my chin and I tried to stop my lip from quivering.

  He bent his head close to mine. “Blay,” he said softly, the word tickling my cheek. “It’s going to be ok, ok?”

  I licked my lips. “Ok…”

  I could have sworn that I heard a growl escape him, but with the music I couldn’t be sure. “This is the part where they watch us make up, alright?”

  It took a second to register what he said, but then I understood what he was doing. The dance. The apology. It was still all part of the show.

  But how did I reconcile the words that came from his mouth with the way his body felt against mine?

  “Yeah…” I agreed softly, wondering if he could feel my heart pounding out of my chest. It was trying to make a break for it; I didn’t blame it.

  He gave me a soft smile—the kind that made my stomach flip—and when his thumb brushed over my lower lip, I realized that he was waiting for me to do the same. Tipping the corners of my mouth up, I nodded slightly into his hand as though I were forgiving him. The moment felt drawn out as I was dimly aware of the variety of cameras, their flashes blending in with the lights from the DJ.

  I expected that to be it. I expected him to pull me back to our friends in the corner just like I’d expected him to not be a good dancer.

  I expected wrong.

  His eyes stayed locked with mine as his lips drifted down—like he’d been trying to keep them afloat for as long as possible. But you can’t tread water forever.

  I didn’t breathe until his mouth touched mine, afraid that even just an exhale would push him away. Gently his lips molded to mine. The tip of the iceberg. Only ten percent of the desire that lay beneath the surface.

  My body ground against his—and he let it. The desire that had disappeared now returned with a vengeance. But trying to fulfill it was like knocking politely on the door to get into Fort Knox. No, I would need more weapons than I had right now (or maybe ever) if I was going to break inside of him.

  He kissed me like he rejected me: with practiced ease. And because he needed to.

  I whimpered when he pulled back.

  “Why did you do that?” I begged. He didn’t answer me and I followed his eyes to where Tay stood holding my jacket, awkwardly waiting for our moment to end.

  He leaned towards her and I heard him say, “She’s drunk.”

  “I am—”

  Tay shoved my jacket at me and rolled her eyes at my half-hearted (and slightly slurred) protest. “Yeah, ok, B.” She laughed. “I called for the car. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

  I grumbled as I shoved my arms into my jacket, about to turn and follow her when Zach grabbed my arm. My breath sputtered in surprise when I found his face so temptingly close to mine again.

  “Text me so I know you got back ok,” he growled, looking around to all of the people watching us.

  This wasn’t anything like the mob in Miami. Heck, I was walking maybe fifty feet to the car outside, but he stared at me like he was this close to carrying me back to my room himself to make sure I made it there ok.

  Protective. Just like a brother, I tried to rationalize.

  The warm tingles that gleefully skipped up my spine reminded me that ‘rational’ and ‘Zach Parker’ were mutually exclusive.

  Track 09: Sweet Dreams

  “I see you. I touch you. I taste you.

  Nothing is what it seems.

  I want you. You’re here. You’re mine.

  Not even in my sweetest dreams.”

  I TURNED OVER AGAIN, GROANING loudly into my pillow—a process that had now been repeated several times.

  Maybe I should try reading again. Or writing new lyrics.

  Something.

  Anything.

  Because lying here, all I focused on was that I couldn’t sleep. And I couldn’t sleep because of how much I wanted Zach.

  I texted him as soon as I walked in the door. Just like he told me to. I also may have asked if he’d made it back ok, too… Not because I was desperate to hold on to whatever had been happening on the dance floor. Of course not. Superstars don’t get desperate.

  A few minutes ago, I saw that he’d finally read the text message but still hadn’t responded.

  So why wasn’t he answering?

  Maybe something happened.

  To a group of five guys, four of whom were or looked like they should have been football players?

  It was possible, I argued with myself.

  And drunk me was always right.

  Or at least she was quicker than rational me, pushing the ‘Call’ button before I could stop myself.

  One ring.

  Two.

  I clenched my teeth. He was the one who told me to text and now, he couldn’t even freaking bother to—

  “What’s wrong?” Zach’s deep voice rasped over the phone.

  “I… Ahh… Nothing,” I sputtered. “I just… I texted you, but you didn’t respond.”

  There was a beat of silence before he spoke again. “You should be sleeping.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered honestly.

  “Why not?”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t ready to admit why I was so restless. I wasn’t ready to confess that my entire body still hummed with the thought of his pressed against it. The fire that was lit on the dance floor still kindled through me, sparking and arcing for release.

  “You’re a good dancer,” I said, completely ignoring his question and trying to ignore the ache between my legs.

  Silence.

  He cleared his throat. “Why can’t you sleep, Baby Blake?”

  My legs squeezed together begging me to keep my mouth just as shut.

  “Because you touched me.”

  I heard a muffled curse. I was afraid of what might come next, but I was also excited. There was a danger in telling him something that I shouldn’t and that made me hotter. He deserved to hear what he did to me. Especially since I felt what I’d done to him.

  “And?”

  He was going to make me say it. Whatever. I wore embarrassment so well when I was around him.

  “And now it aches… I ache. I can’t stop thinking about the beach… and if they hadn’t found us.”

  Now, he really did swear.

  �
��Blake…” His voice was so hoarse I wouldn’t be surprised if it was rubbing my ear drum raw as he spoke. “I told you that the beach… I made a mistake.”

  He didn’t say it as coldly or as cruelly this time. He said it as though the fact tortured him. It didn’t make it hurt any less, though.

  “I know. But you’re not here,” I responded. “You can’t touch me through the phone. You can’t… make a mistake.”

  Silence.

  There was so much silence I thought he’d hung up and I was too drunk and delusional to hear the beeps from the line going dead.

  “Are your tits hard like they were earlier for me?”

  My eyes widened. What? Had… Did he just… Was I dreaming?

  “Are they?” The hard voice said again.

  If it was a dream, it was certainly persistent.

  My hand drifted to my right breast even though I didn’t need to feel to know that they were.

  “I-I was cold.”

  His deep chuckle echoed through the line. “Baby Blake is a little liar.”

  My breath rushed out of me.

  “You want me to make you feel better? Is that why you called me, Baby Blake?” he growled. “All that dancing made you hot and achy and now you want me to fix it like it didn’t do the same thing to me.”

  I gulped. He was angry. Always angry to hear how I wanted him.

  “Yes.” It was barely a whisper.

  Silence.

  My hand still at my breast, I toyed with my nipple like it was a pen I was clicking out of nervousness, each flick causing my legs to squeeze together even tighter.

  “Are you wet for me, Blake?” Dream Zach asked.

  No Baby. Just Blake. And pure need.

  Fire licked through my veins because I knew the answer. The heat between my thighs hadn’t dulled since I’d left the bar; the alcohol kept it in my system. I shifted in the bed again as my hand slid down to rest on my stomach that was rapidly rising and falling.

  “Answer me and I’ll make it better,” he demanded.

  A soft cry escaped me before my tongue mumbled thickly, “Y-yes.”

  Harsh breaths were the response.

  “Touch yourself, Blake.” I froze at the command. “Put those fingers of yours down your panties and touch yourself. I want to know just how wet.”

  I stared up at the ceiling that seemed like it was a million miles away as my fingers crawled beneath my pajama shorts and the elastic of my underwear. I sucked in a quick breath as I slid over the sensitive nub at the top of my slit.

  “How wet?” he asked again with a low voice.

  Would slip-n-slide be an inappropriate answer right now?

  I groaned because it was the only thing I could think of.

  “Very.”

  He let out a harsh laugh. “You can do better than that. Tell me how wet.”

  Well, he asked for it.

  I bit back a moan as I pressed my fingers against my slit, trying ease the throbbing. “W-wet like a slip-n-slide. At a waterpark.” His tortured groan made my core spasm and beg for more. “In the middle of a hurricane.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he swore vehemently. “You know how you strum your guitar, Baby Blake? The way your fingers pluck hard over each goddamn note?” Oh god… “Well, that’s what I want you to do for me right now. I want you to flick over that sweet little clit of yours until it hums.”

  I moaned. The kind of moan that escapes when it’s the dead of winter and you take a sip of hot chocolate that burns your whole mouth yet heats every cell in your body. I was hot and burning as I did what he said. My fingers moved slowly just at first, but then rapidly picked up speed as my body found the path to what it was searching for.

  “Stop.” The force of his tone jarred me. His voice changed from pissed off and cruel to desperate and demanding.

  “Zach…” I cried out as my fingers obeyed him.

  “Push one finger in. Slowly. Very fucking slowly, Blake.” I did as I was told, one finger slipping down from my buzzing clit to my entrance and pushing into myself. “Now you’re going to fuck yourself, Blay, but not enough to make you come. Because this is how I feel all the damn time around you: close enough to be tortured.”

  “I-I don’t want to torture you,” I gasped. “I just want you.”

  “Fuck.” I heard him grunt harder. “Take it out and suck on it.”

  “W-what?”

  “Just—” I heard him suck in a harsh breath, “for once, do what I’m asking you to do, Baby Blake.” A million memories of disobedient disasters laced his words.

  I did what he asked, but only because I wanted to hear more. Hearing him so close to losing control was as close as I’d ever come to knowing that Zach Parker had lost anything because of me.

  My finger popped out of my mouth and his exhale rushed into the phone.

  “That taste should have been mine. Just like everything else about you…” The way he said it, the way need and regret sliced through every word, make me shake. I was forbidden. To him, at least. People said I was damaged. Delicate. Complicated.

  They weren’t wrong.

  Still, he wanted me.

  “Three fingers,” he ordered. I complied, spreading myself wide with three fingers, the stretch sharp and delicious at the same time. Biting down on my lip, my back arched as I began to slide my fingers in and out, letting my thumb brush over my clit with every penetration.

  In between the long spans of incoherent inebriation, where it took all I had to focus on moving my fingers faster and harder towards release, I heard him telling me not to stop, to keep moaning, and that hearing me was like music to his ears. I also heard the hard and heavy grunts and I wondered if he was pleasuring himself, too.

  I whimpered. I was closing in on my orgasm and all I wanted to do was chase it. Hunt it. Overtake it. My breath caught as my hand picked up the pace, my fingers finding a rhythm that would carry me all the way.

  “Christ, Blay,” he growled into my ear. The phone vibrated against my face, my hand was shaking so badly. He was pleasuring himself. “You know how bad my dick wants to be inside you? How bad I want to claim you when the world acts like you belong to them?” My lungs weren’t functioning. “That’s all I think about, Baby Blake. Marking you. Making you mine. Feeling the way that sweet little pussy of yours sings around my cock.”

  The words were ripped from him like they ripped my orgasm from me. I convulsed, crying out into my pillow as I felt my body flex around my fingers. Vaguely, I heard a groan come from my phone that had fallen beside me.

  All the tension, all the tightness, drained from my body and I could breathe again.

  “Zach…” I whispered his name, tapping on the speakerphone button because I didn’t trust myself to hold the phone.

  Silence.

  And then, “Go to sleep, Blake.”

  In the morning I’d wonder if this was real… and not just one more of my wildest dreams.

  I was a fucking idiot. Christ.

  One fucking night and yeah, I could pat myself on the back all I wanted for not touching her like I promised, but that was like making it to a party on time only because I’d run every goddamn stoplight in town. I’d made it, but I’d still broken the law.

  I punched the elevator button again, impatient for the damn thing to get back to the lobby.

  I’d woken up over an hour ago and after showering off what was left of my jerk-off session from last night, I’d trekked downstairs in search of some strong, black coffee with a side of renewed determination to keep Blake and me strictly business.

  I prayed she was too drunk and too tired to remember what I’d told her to do.

  Slip-n-slide.

  I gulped down another sip of coffee letting it burn the hell out of my tongue.

  The chime went off just as the doors opened and Taylor came crashing into me.

  “Crap!” She dropped her phone and the notepad she’d been staring at. “Sorry, Zach. I-I didn’t see you.” She bent down t
o pick up her stuff and spilled more shit from the huge bag she was carrying. “Shit.”

  I bent down and helped her scoop up the mess. “You alright? You look a little…”

  “…Frazzled?” she finished for me with a laugh.

  I nodded and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Just trying to get everything ready to leave and apparently there was a miscommunication at the hotel in New York about what time we are getting there. And then, she has a whole day free that I have a million people clamoring to schedule up for photos and interviews. The press is up my ass about you two last night—which is good because at least it’s not about her talking to Ron—but then I also have Bruce on my ass about scheduling this interview for Blake in Texas—” she barely stopped to gasp in air, before continuing, “And to top it all off, Blake is hungover with a headache from hell, so I’m down here trying to find some Advil or something to help her because she’s crawled up in bed, practically in tears. There’s no way she can get on the plane like this—”

  She broke off because my hands gripped her shoulders and shook her back to the moment because the damn girl looked like she’d lost her mind and her mouth was trying to talk its way into finding it.

  “Breathe, Taylor.” She blinked up at me, remembering where she was and who she was talking to.

  “Sorry, I—”

  “Don’t apologize,” I insisted with a sigh. Don’t do it, Parker. Don’t fucking do it. “Look. Why don’t you do what you have to do and you let me take care of Blake?”

  Congratulations to me. I’d just gone from plain horny idiot to certifiable fucking moron.

  Even the words leaving my mouth sparked an impossible want

  Her eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded again.

  “I… ahh… ok. Thank you.” She gave me a small smile and, as much as it was going to kill me to be in the room with Blake after last night, I was glad I offered. “Here’s her key. I’ll just text her and let her know…”