by Meg Watson
“I had such a wonderful time tonight,” I said, my voice suddenly going hoarse.
He grinned openly. “I told you you would.”
His smile was infectious and I let a grin pinch my cheeks. “Yes you did tell me that.”
I could have stood there all night and stroked his chest and shoulders and simply feasted my eyes on his long, strong form. But I didn't think my heart could take it. I wanted very much to go home.
“Thank you for everything,” I whispered as I slid my feet back into my heels and picked my handbag up off of the table.
“Thank you,” he growled, stepping forward and catching my jaw gracefully between his palms. He tipped my head back and gave me a long, lingering kiss. He just stood there sucking lightly at my lips, a vivid contrast to the raging hunger that he had displayed just a few hours ago.
When he finally pulled back he left me breathless. I had two competing desires in my mind: part of me desperately wanted to leave and part of me desperately wanted to stay.
I stumbled forward and smiled as I felt my cheeks go pink again. It seemed like it was so easy for him to simply connect with me. I felt raw and at the same time knew that the best salve was just to touch him again. And yet I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“When will we see you again?” he asked.
“I'll have that proposal for you in a couple of days,” I answered smoothly.
“Well that wasn't what I —”
“I know,” I interrupted him. “But it is what I meant.”
He nodded curtly as though accepting my answer.
I walked away from him and opened the door without looking back to make sure that I didn't lose the will to leave.
The light in the hallway was harsh and bright. It had that new carpet smell and everything seemed to have been recently redecorated. I looked over my shoulder and noticed how clean everything was. Or perhaps these kinds of luxury establishments were just always in a state of newness.
The penthouse door began to swing closely closed, the hydraulics hissing softly. I looked the other way down the hallway and saw two figures coming toward me laughing, falling into each other. She had her shoes dangling from her fingers and he held her with both arms around her shoulders, pulling her tight to his front side.
My lips tightened. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the door was still open. When I glanced back, the couple had stopped. Carl stood with his mouth hanging open, his face going gray and bloodless. Whitney's rust red lips opened in a perfect O of surprise and her fingers shot forward as though she was determined once again to get to me. I felt steel bands clamp around my rib cage and all my breath seemed to curdle in my lungs.
The door finally closed, click. My only escape was gone. I was going to have to walk down the hall.
JOKERS
Billionaire Brothers, II
Book 2
CHAPTER 1
“Bree,” Whitney's voice called plaintively down the hall. “Bree, wait!”
Carl's face blanched to beige and he gripped her around her elbow to stop her from moving forward, but she folded at the waist and pulled against him. I looked over my shoulder at the dead end of the hallway behind me and then back to them in horror. They were coming for me now, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Click. The penthouse door swung inward, creating a vacuum wind that threw my hair out over my shoulder.
Lyle stepped into the hallway with one finger extended and my limp and mangled panties swinging from it. He was still completely naked yet totally at ease, with his weight positioned casually over one hip and his cock dangling heavily between his muscular thighs.
“Do you need these? Or can I keep them?”
“Do I — you want to —”
“Oh, your friend is here,” Lyle said, quirking an eyebrow at Whitney.
Whitney doggedly charged forward despite Carl's hand around her arm until she was just steps from me. She raised her palms in the air as though surrendering. Her eyes flickered toward Lyle and down the length of his body then back to mine, blinking rapidly as her cheeks reddened.
“Bree, I never meant for this to happen —”
I shook my head. It seemed strangely important to figure out with whom I was more angry and simultaneously impossible to weigh the differences against each other. Also, I was outraged that that was even something I had to puzzle through.
Carl's disgusted scowl settled on Lyle's thick and now growing manhood. Lyle seemed completely unaware and smirked vaguely at the pair of them.
“What — what is going on here, Brienne?” Carl demanded in a quaking voice that made Whitney shoot him a look over her shoulder.
“I really think that's none of your concern,” I said coolly and admired my composure. I mean, at least I had clothes on.
The corners of Carl's mouth turned dramatically downward, and he stuck his chin forward like a temperamental gradeschooler.
“Who is this?!” he demanded.
“Oh, how rude of me. I'm Lyle Jack,” he said, offering his hand to shake and folding the other hand along with my panties behind his back. Carl stared at it with a horrified expression.
The door to the penthouse swung open again suddenly and Owen padded out, rubbing his eyes and squinting against the hallway light. The dark line of hair that extended up from his dusky and engorged member was still sticky and matted from our combined fluids.
“Brienne,” he sighed sleepily, “are you leaving? Don't leave."
“Owen?”
Owen blinked as though shaking the sleep from his eyes.
“Oh, hey there, Carl,” Owen said, stifling a yawn that arched his back. He also stuck out his hand to shake Carl's, but it was ignored. He let it drop to his side and his palm smacked loudly against his hip. “What is everybody doing out here?”
Carl took a step backward.
“Brienne,” he said in a quavering whisper, “just come with me now. We can talk about this.”
Owen looked Carl up and down as though confused. Then he shrugged and dipped his head to nibble at the base of my neck again, which seemed to be his favorite spot. I tipped my head to the side and closed my eyes for a moment to savor the sweet sensation of his lips and to mentally escape the hallway if only for a moment.
“Don't leave,” he murmured again. “Let's go back to bed.”
I felt Lyle's fingers hooking behind my elbow and his gentle tug back toward the penthouse.
For a moment I wondered what I was supposed to do. There was no protocol for this. It was completely an uncharted interaction and totally outside the realm of anything I had ever planned for.
I couldn't bring myself to address Carl or Whitney. I couldn’t even really consider the whole event by wading into it, for fear I would drown after the first step. I could only skirt around the outside of the vast well of anger that boiled in me.
“No,” I said over their heads, vaguely directing the word down the hallway, away from me, away from anything resembling a conversation with either of them.
Then I rolled my head toward Lyle and rested my cheek against his naked shoulder. His hand cuffed the bottom of my chin sweetly and Owen’s arm looped under mine. The penthouse door opened and the three of us glided back inside of it, acting as one graceful unit.
CHAPTER 2
“You know, actually,” Melita said with a small curl of croissant embedded in the rose-red gloss of her lower lip, “I think the food is better here.”
I looked around the Brewhouse coffee shop and nodded. Unlike Carl’s stripmall-esque shop, the Brewhouse had tall, raftered ceilings and exposed duct work. The sound of the steam wand echoed against the old walnut floors and plaster walls. It had that cool Lincoln Park vintage feel.
“Yeah, the ambience is definitely a step up too. And it has a great view of Dave's ass crack pressed up against the window over there.”
"Ewww,” Melita groaned, peering through the window and across the street until she saw what I saw. Dave had hooked his thumbs into
the belt loops of his khakis and unfortunately dragged them down just enough to exceed the coverage of his Amped Up uniform polo shirt. He had at least two inches of suspiciously dark ass crack jammed against the plateglass.
“I wonder how long it's going to take Carl to get through that line,” I said, squinting. It seemed like the same crossed-armed professionals were still standing close to the door, impatiently shifting their weight from hip to hip. It was the usual morning rush of customers but he didn't seem to be making any progress through it.
I wished the competing coffee shops were just a little closer together so I could watch him struggle better. I hoped he was suffering: sweating through his slightly receding hairline that I always denied existed (No, honey! Nobody can tell!), or maybe scalding himself on hot steam. He might get horribly disfigured. That would be fun to watch.
“Yeah, go figure. Carl doesn't even know how to run the espresso bar, I don't think,” Melita drawled. She slurped at the cappuccino in the large blue mug in front of her and then licked the stripe of white foam from her upper lip.
“I'm serious,” she said. “This place is awesome. I should work here.”
“Well, I suppose we will have our pick of local coffee shops now.”
"Naw, don't start that again,” she warned. “I should work here. Not you. You have a proposal to write. Don't you dare start looking for a way out now.”
I frowned into my double latte. Yes, I did have a proposal to write, and the thought was more than a little intimidating. Wouldn't another job with a name tag and a hairnet just be simpler? But then the image of Owen's intense and curious grin during the trivia match flashed through my mind. It really would be a pity if I never got to see that kind of intellectual delight on his face again.
Shifting unconsciously in my seat, I winced and settled back gently.
Melita's eyebrows went up into two beautifully smug arches.
“Having a hard time with your tender bits, are you?” she asked. “How exactly are you sitting right now?”
“Mostly on one cheek, to be honest.”
“Tsk tsk tsk.”
“Don’t you judge me,” I retorted, pointing. “I remember you being pretty gung-ho about this situation.”
She shrugged and sucked her teeth. “All I’m saying is you didn’t have to go all the way to Crazytown, Bree. There are actually several delightful attractions on the way where you could have stopped first.”
“Ha, right.”
“What, you never heard of fel-lay-she-oh?”
“Mel…”
“Fingertown, maybe?”
“Oh stop it,” I said, cutting my eyes toward the other coffeehouse guests. They seemed inordinately interested in our conversation. But Melita was on a roll, and there was no getting in her way once the roll started.
“You’d like it there; it’s nice,” she cooed enthusiastically. “Why, I hear they have muff diving!”
“Oh my god, Melita, stop it!”
“Foreplay....” she sighed wistfully. “It’s a dying art! All you crazy kids go right for the double penetration like saying ‘how do you do!’”
“We didn’t go right for it…”
Her lips puckered into a candy-coated ring of disbelief.
“Yeah, okay,” I conceded. “I guess it was a little accelerated.”
“Accelerated your hot pocket right into the Super Bowl of Fucking, more like,” she added wryly.
I cringed and squinted at the other patrons who were rapt with attention now, not even attempting to hide their eavesdropping.
“People are staring, Mel.”
“Like who?” she said loudly, swivelling her head all around, flipping her shiny mocha curls from shoulder to shoulder.
“Like all of them,” I pointed. A couple who noticed me went sheepishly back to inspecting their cellphones.
“I don’t care nothing about them,” she said, waving her hand in the air.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, defeated. Sometimes giving up was the only way to end a conversation with her.
I shifted in my seat again, wincing as my bruised and raw-feeling nether parts complained in protest. Yet every time I felt the pain from my battered sex organs I couldn't help but remember the intense storm of sensations and experiences that brought me here. It was like remembering a confusing dream. Everything seemed to come through in bits and flashes that were saturated with extra meaning because every feeling had been doubled, even tripled in sensation once I submitted to it.
“You're thinking about it again, aren't you,” she asked, her eyes narrowed.
I looked away to hide my embarrassment and shrugged.
“Well, it's hard to forget when my body keeps reminding me. Ouch.”
“I'll bet,” she nodded sagely. “I cannot wait to hear about the next chapter in your crazy circus of a love life. What will you do for an encore? Do they maybe have a cousin or something? Is it like a clown car full of Jacks and Kings and Jokers that just come spilling out when you open the door?”
I put my hands up, palm out.
“Oh no, no, no,” I protested. “That was a one-time thing… Well, a two-time thing… Well, a two times two thing, does that make it a four thing?”
“Definitely,” she said.
“But, don't hate me…" I started.
“Oh no! No you don't!” Melita warned.
"I just can't,” I explained. "They're never going to see me in a serious way now, right? I mean, this isn't the sort of thing you can just come back from.”
“You don't know that,” she shot back.
“I think I do. I mean, that's what I loved about it. I could see myself through their eyes and I was just… Well, better than plain old Bree. I was maybe a little swept away by all that. But this is real life. I can't just go on pretending to be something I'm not.”
Melita shook her head angrily.
“It had to be you in there somewhere. Maybe Carl was the one who was making you into somebody you're not,” she suggested. “You can't just walk away from this because the sex was too intense. Not when the whole rest of the world is paying good money to even get a glance at that kind of hotness. And there you went and just dropped right into the middle of it. Literally. Without even having to try real hard.”
I closed my eyes. “Melita, I just can't…”
I felt her hand covering my hand on the table. Oh no, she was about to get serious again. When I opened my eyes she was staring at me with full-on wise gramma face.
“Bree, girl... don't be a pussy,” she said sagely, her eyes half-closed like a yoga instructor. “Nobody ever said living the dream was going to be easy. But if your bottom bits can stand the beating, I really think you should go for it.”
I squinched up my face. “Really?”
“Rilly rilly,” she nodded, slurping.
With a sigh I tried to manage to look like I was going to be able to do that. But I didn't feel like I could. It was just too extreme, and not the way that I could live my life from day to day. Who could?
The waitress came by and placed a small dish with our bill on the table. Melita's hand went out for it and I took it from her, fishing a card from the front pocket of my purse and dropping it on the tray.
“I think it was my turn,” she objected as the waitress took the bill away.
“It's the least I can do, since you quit your job for me and all.”
She shrugged like it was no big deal, but she did lean back from the bill and let me take it. “I hated that job anyway. Dave was just too much. Though I am happy to say that for all the awful things he did, I've never seen quite as much of his butt crack as I have suffered through today.”
I peered across the street to confirm that Dave's ass was in fact still flattened against the window. I couldn't imagine why he hadn't offered to help Carl, who seem to still be drowning behind the front counter by himself. But then again it would be just like Carl to refuse assistance rather than admit he didn't know what the hell he was doing. And it wo
uld be just like Dave to stand there and watch him fail.
In a way, those two completely deserved each other. I just felt bad for the 15 or so regular customers whose impatient body language was being broadcast all the way across to where I was sitting. A couple of them had even crossed the street and come to the Brewhouse, and a small part of me delighted in the notion that Carl had lost those customers forever.
“I'm sorry, miss?” the waitress said, very close to my shoulder in an apologetic tone. “This card was declined? Do you have an alternative?”
“Declined?" I said, confused. "That's not… That's impossible. I'm sorry, let me get you another.”
I plunged my hand to the bottom of my purse and grabbed my wallet, snapping it open and pulling out the gold card. As I dropped it on the tray I realized that it had both of our names, right there on the front. Dread started to well up in my belly.
“What's wrong?” Melita asked in a low whisper.
“Hold on,” I whispered back. I stared across the street, just making out the top of Carl's shining head as it bounced back and forth behind the counter in frantic activity.
Oh no. Oh no you didn't.
“It's probably fine. That was my checking account, and I know there's plenty of money in there, savings and everything. I just gave her the gold card. It's probably —”
“I'm sorry, miss?” the waitress whispered.
I cut her off. I couldn’t bear to hear her say it again.
“No, no… Here you go, I'm sorry. There must be some kind of mistake,” I explained rapidly, dropping a $20 bill on the tray and snatching the useless plastic card back and shoving it into my purse.
I stood up, my heart racing, the room threatening to tilt and slide sideways under my feet as my knees started to go all wobbly.
“What is it?” Melita asked, standing up with me and leaning in, pulling her handbag close to her chest protectively.
"I'm not sure…” I choked out. “Can we go to your house? I need to use the computer. I think… I think Carl cut off all my accounts,” I whispered, horrified, the truth of the situation settling in my ears as the words came out of my mouth.
