Cody Barnes walked out on stage looking all new-folk in his shirt, braces and snug trousers which finished high enough to show his blue socks and desert boots. He looked good. Especially in the spotlight, which gave definition to his body. I saw the slim yet muscular shape of his trapezium torso, and athleticism in his strong thighs. He had a flat stomach and I indulged a moment in imagining him topless. Yes, he was built differently to Brandon, but Cody was still very easy on the eye…
“I’m going to read from the little book that’s getting all the attention, Seismic Girl,” he said. “And there’s a chance that the girl I wrote this about is here tonight. Anyway, here goes…”
He looked in my direction but didn’t see me. When he started to read, but his voice was different that before. It was full of passion, Cody’s quirky, fun-loving quality was replaced with emotion and emphasis. I looked around. He had the small audience eating from his hand by the end of the first paragraph.
“She stared at you like winter, cold and harsh yet full of awesome appeal and natural beauty the kind which startles you when you first notice. In her winter, you realised there was a glimpse of summer, the warmth of the sun waiting and wanting to wash over you. When you caught a glimpse of her smile, you knew the winter was just a cloak she wore to protect herself. But when she saw she was connected to you - when she knew you’d seen her shining - she became the beauty of spring before your very eyes. The lush new blossom, filling the trees with a bomb of colour – the full tulips standing up in the soft breeze. She was beauty which called you. And as soon as you’d experienced that, you wanted, you needed to experience the glory of her summer. I was waiting for summer. And I was prepared to wait as long as it took to get there.”
Cody blew me away. I sipped my wine as I felt his appeal to my heart – as if his hand was outstretched to my skin. I had to take a breath because his words had stolen it, and I wiped a tear away from my eye before it spilled. No person in my whole life had ever spoken such words about me. But Cody Barnes had written an entire book of them. I wanted to kiss him. More than anything, I wanted to be alone with him then, kissing him, pleasing him, letting know that I was his. Joanna Laws lingered at the edge of the stage, her arms folded. Her beautiful face was tainted with unhappiness, but I couldn’t help be a little glad. Cody looked up from his reading, and his eyes found mine. His face froze and then he smiled and regained his composure. Joanna Laws followed his line of sight and saw me. I smiled over my glass of wine and raised it at both of them and Cody continued to read with a new smile emblazoned on his face. Joanna Laws shook her head and walked out of them room, right past me, without taking a look. What a shame.
“Where’s Joanna?” asked Cody nervously as he made his way through the applauding crowd. He looked around. I stood up and struck a little pose, just to ensure he noticed what I wanted him to notice. Cody’s eyes met mine.
“She left, Cody.” He looked at me, his eyes falling across my face. I saw his eyes settle on my chest a beat too long and I didn’t mind at all. My blouse was designed to get that look, with its low curving neckline emphasising my soft curves. From there he took a step back to take a full appraisal.
“Wow!” he said shaking his head in disbelief. His writing made me feel like a princess, but his eyes and reaction to my outfit was making feel like a fox. My confidence was growing.
“You like?”
“You look amazing, Ashley! That blouse, that skirt… I mean just amazing.”
I downed my wine and tapped the glass down on the bar.
“So, are we drinking here, or are you taking me for dinner so we can finally talk?”
He looked around and I waited for him to look back at me. I gave him a sassy little eyebrow raise. He got the message. “I suppose I can just send Joanna a text.”
“Remember the girl standing in front of you?”
“The vision I see before me?”
“Then take this vision to dinner and stop talking about Joanna before I change my mind.”
He took my hand and we walked out into the night. He hadn’t even signed one book. We didn’t go for dinner. Instead we walked and talked. I told him about my situation with Brandon, but I didn’t waste much time on that. I felt desire and joy coming off him in waves… He was on a high and so was I. We climbed up to the top of the city wall and began to walk along the perimeter with its views across the city. The wall was busy tonight with walkers. We reached a corner as another stream of people approached from the oncoming direction. Cody moved to the right towards the side so they could step past, but he tripped over me and I fell back towards the stone floor. Before I fell, he seized me and pulled me upright. As the others passed we ended up pressed together, looking into each other’s eyes. I pressed my body, breasts and hips up against him, and breathed in his scent. I saw his lips quiver as he was caught in the moment. I leaned in and wrapped my arms around his neck and I drew his lips to mine. We kissed slowly and passionately, his hands smoothing across my back. As our tongues met and caressed one another, his hands slid down to my derriere. He squeezed me close to him, and I felt the pressure of his new erection against my tummy. He grew harder as we kissed and I felt my body tingle with arousal. I broke the kiss and looked around. I wanted to touch his body. I wanted to have his cock in my hand, my mouth, and yes, I wanted to give him my body, to feel him inside me., him needing me, and me needing him. He nuzzled my neck to draw my mouth back to his.
“Down there,” I whispered. There were steps behind leading down from the wall to the outer area. I pulled at his hand and he followed me, confused but willing. Down the bottom of the steps was a patch of semi-rural wasteland at the edge of the city, with a waterway nearby. I pulled him back to the edge of the wall, out of sight from walkers. “Ashley!” he laughed as I pulled him to me, and slid my arms and hands all over his body, slipping my hands into his shirt at his back. He shivered and I laughed into his lips. I wanted him and needed him to know it. I lifted my leg and pressed my thigh against his hip, I felt him go tense with need and expectation. As he kissed me, our tongues entangled, his hand touched my thigh and began to slowly climb.
“I’ve wanted you so bad, Ashley.”
“I know, I whispered. I can feel how much you want me now. I want you too…”
His hand drew around my thigh, slowly, gently. I knew where he was headed and I smiled into his kiss. There. His hand slid over the satin and lace which covered my slit. He gently pressed his fingers until the satin pressed between my lips and my wetness met his fingers.
“Am I wet for you?” I asked.
Cody nodded and kissed me.
“I don’t want to do it here, Ashley. I want to treat you like a queen.”
“And you will honey. But right now, I want you to treat me like the girl who needs you…”
His lips went crazy over me and I felt his hand push and stroke my pussy through my panties until I groaned into his kiss. I was getting lost in desire, but a noise from my handbag broke into my mind. My body tensed and Cody felt it. It was my mobile phone. I kissed him and held him tightly, by the damn phone wouldn’t die. In the end I had to break the kiss.
“Let me get rid of this call, honey.”
I pulled the phone from my bag and looked at the screen. I blinked and looked again because it really didn’t make any sense. It was Amanda. I took the call and immediately wished I hadn’t. When Cody saw my face change so did his.
Fourteen
“This trip is going to be a blast, baby. I just want to fix Ashley, tell her a few home truths and get things back like they were before, okay? As soon as I’ve fixed that, you and I will have some fun in this city. Hey? The women readers at this festival might even spontaneously combust when they learn that the hippest new writer of them all just rode into town.”
Amanda sat beside Brandon in the taxi from York station to the Quality Inn. She heard the call Brandon made where he booked two rooms for them. Firstly, that showed Brandon’s confidence was pretty high. S
econdly, it showed Amanda once again that the man she loved was a total asshole. By booking two rooms in front of her, he’d let Amanda know he intended to score, maybe with Ashley or maybe someone else. Whatever the result, Amanda knew that the spare room was intended for her. The outcast. The prettiest ugly duckling in the whole history of the world. Amanda knew Ashley well enough by now to guess if she did ever come back to Brandon – unlikely as it was - Ashley sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep in the second room. Ashley would be sleeping beside Brandon because Amanda knew she was a girl who would never play second fiddle.
It sickened Amanda to think that while Brandon rekindled his affair with Ashley at the hotel, she knew she would still sleep in the next room to him, listening to them making love while trying not to. It sickened her because Amanda knew she was beautiful, yet she was broken by this cruel, beautiful angel of a man. And yet she couldn’t hate him, she just couldn’t. The crazy, deluded bastard had even suggested she come with him on his grand tour to York, like some concubine willing to watch him court another woman. He pretended it was going to be fun. But where was the fun in that… being taken to watch her dreams being torn up again?
When the cab arrived outside the Quality Inn, Brandon gave the cab driver a ten pound note and told him to keep the change. Brandon was excited, she could feel it. They got out of the cab and Amanda looked at the old city while Brandon picked up both their bags and headed toward the bright-lit reception. When he made it to the door he turned around.
“Hey, gorgeous… we should test the quality of the hotel beds before we go out.”
Amanda sighed and yet she was flattered and excited at his offer. One day, he would choose her – forever – and she would forgive him everything. One day. But not today.
“You go in. I just want to go through the voicemails on my phone.”
“Okay, hon.” He went in, while Amanda scrolled through her phone contacts. Ashley and Amanda had gone through the motions and done the whole number-swap friends thing just to please Brandon. Now finally that number was going to come in handy. Amanda pressed the call button.
“Hey, Ashley? How are you?”
Ashley sounded defensive and confused. “I’m good. What’s up Amanda?”
Amanda bit her lip and put on her best acting voice. It had to be realistic because Ashley had to believe every word of it. She wanted the girl she had pinned all her hatred on to fall for every single word.
“I wanted to let you know it’s all finished. It’s over.”
“What do you mean?”
“Brandon’s accepted that you’re gone and he says it’s okay. He really wasn’t happy at first, but now he says its fine. In fact he says it was probably for the best that you’ve gone.”
The line went quiet. “Oh… right…” said Ashley, and Amanda heard the confusion, even the slightest disappointment in Ashley’s voice. Amanda smiled.
“Do you know what the means?” said Amanda.
“You want to tell me?”
“It means you’re free of him and he’s free of you.”
Ashley’s tone changed to match Amanda’s hard edge.
“Well that’s nice for me and good for him. But watch out Amanda. You know what they say. You could get what you wished for…”
Ashley hung up and Amanda’s bittersweet smile remained on her face. Inside, she felt her heart twisting like a well wrung cloth. But at least she had caused some harm to the Brandon and Ashley’s chances. Their meeting was going to blow up. It was going to be an unhappy mess and hopefully, the best outcome was that Brandon and Ashley would never get together again. And Amanda would be there to pick up his pieces. Job done, Amanda walked into the reception, ready to please Brandon.
Fifteen
Amanda’s messed up phone call wasn’t the only disturbance in our moonlight walk along the city wall. I could have walked with him all night if it meant we could be together, but I would rather have spent the night with him in his hotel bed, showing him how much I wanted him. But fate was against us. Amanda’s whacky phone call told me she was losing the plot, even so it still felt like a green light to go with Cody. I was all ready to plant my lips all over his sweet face when his own phone started bleating. He made a frustrated face as he looked at it.
“It’s a text from Joanna. She says I need to go back to the finish interviews and the book signing. I don’t think she’s pleased.”
“No?” was all I said, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know Joanna wouldn’t be pleased.
I waited for Cody to smash the system – to say he was done following his agent’s advice. But that was just my hormones talking. Cody needed his agent, and this was his future. I sighed, and quietly instructed my raging libido to behave itself. I took Cody by the hand and led him back along the wall. Knowing he felt bad, I squeezed his hand.
“You’re pretty amazing, Ashley,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” I said looking at him flirtatiously, hoping I was able to soon keep my promises.
We got back into the pub with the red velvet curtains, and saw Joanna Laws busily talking to a clutch of bookish looking people, men with foppish brown hair, but mostly women in their late thirties and forties. I saw what Joanna was doing – she was keeping them busy while she played for time, waiting for the prodigal to return. She looked around at both of us, smiling all the while, but I caught the angry fire in her eyes. Joanna took Cody towards the stage as a mother drags her child urgently to where they should have been. She didn’t tell him off – she was far too professional for that – but I saw she wasn’t happy.
As Cody took a seat on stage and started fielding questions, Joanna Laws slowly walked towards me in a queenly strut around the edge of the crowd, her manner telling me a can of whoop-ass was coming my way. I wasn’t scared. I was ready.
“So…” said the woman, coming up alongside me, all close and pally… “You do scrub up well. Where did you take him?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t matter. What matters is the harm you are doing to his reputation – already! He was supposed to stay here and talk and field questions like a good writer. Half this business is PR these days. He needs good PR. Running off and shagging the nearest blonde is hardly good PR at a book signing, is it.”
“Back off, Joanna. I’m not the nearest blonde and whether or not we had sex is none of your business.”
Joanna nodded with a glint in her eye. “There was no sex then.”
I shrugged. “That’s my business, Joanna.”
“That’s right. But whatever your business is, Ashley, don’t let it clash with mine, is that crystal clear?”
“We’re clear. Now I’ve got a line for you, Joanna. Sharp suited business lady or not, you don’t frighten me at all. I’ll look out for Cody, you can be sure of that and I’m equal to anything you’ve got. Are we clear on that?”
The woman didn’t say a word, but her smile broadened. I saw her loosen up.
“You know, I think I could even grow to like you, Ashley.”
I smiled back. “I certainly don’t need any more enemies right now.”
We started to talk while Cody fielded more dull questions about his writing style and influences. Eventually Joanna nodded to the bar. She bought me a drink and we headed to the quieter, cooler part of the building where she could keep an eye on Cody, but also enjoy the cool air from the open door to the street. We didn’t talk about Cody, for obvious reasons. We joked and tried to keep it light, two love rivals simply making an effort at a truce. Which was fine… until somebody at the doorway called my name and the sky fell crashed right down on my head.
“Ashley. Hey, am I glad to see you?” Joanna and I looked up. Brandon Lynes filled the doorway, with Amanda walking behind his shoulder, her pretty face looking spiteful, coy and angelic all in the same moment. Joanna turned to me. “Isn’t that…?”
Questing Heart: Fighting Heart Erotic Bad Boy Romance Series Book 2 Page 8
