by Ava Lore
“Wow!” Rebecca hollered over the noise. “About time, Rose!”
Yup. Right on cue. I rolled my eyes at her—the VIP section did a flip around me and I had to blink hard to get it to right itself—then opened my mouth to tell her Manny was going to take me home.
“We’re going out to the parking lot to make out,” Manny announced. “Then I’m taking her home.”
My mouth stayed open. Gaping, I turned my head and looked at him incredulously.
He winked at me. This did nothing for my incredulity.
I heard Kent laugh over the pounding music. “Her home or your home?” he asked.
Beneath my hands I felt Manny’s thick muscles slide together as he shrugged. “Wherever she’s most comfortable.”
Something was wrong with my face. It was...on fire? No, more like it had gone nuclear. I was hot as Chernobyl. I was a danger to the bar and everyone in it. My mouth was still open, and over the pounding of my heart in my ears I heard Rebecca howl with laughter.
“Don’t have too much fun,” someone said, and Manny grinned.
“We’ll try to leave some for the rest of you,” he replied. “Later!” Then he nodded at Rebecca and Kent, who raised their glasses to us. Then he turned and gave little nods to the rest of the band who caught his eye: Carter, the guitarist, lyricist, and soon-to-be movie star, Carter’s quiet girlfriend Aylen, and Sonya, the lead singer and keyboardist, who was scowling at me from her spot at a table full of fawning men.
Ouch, I thought. I’d heard that she and Manny were best friends. This wasn’t exactly the way I’d wanted to start getting to know the rest of the band, especially because I was almost certain Manny was just joking around. I mean...he had to be.
Right?
I gave Sonya a weak smile, which was hard given how numb my face was after a bottle and change of champagne. It was a valiant effort, though.
She just scowled harder and looked me straight in the eye.
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to keep my head up instead of hiding my face in Manny’s shoulder again. I watched, my eyes crossing slightly, as we marched back down the steps and Manny maneuvered us again through the crowd to the front of the bar. There one of the employees opened the door and ushered us out, and then we were out in the California night.
Nearing midnight. The beginning of June. Still a little on the chilly side, but not too bad. I had a hot guy to warm me up, after all.
I kept my mouth shut as Manny wove through the cars parked in the lot, but when he stopped I frowned, confused. My brain sloshed around inside my skull as I looked around, but no matter where I looked I couldn’t see anything that looked like a rock star’s car. I wasn’t that drunk. Hopefully.
“Did you forget where you parked?” I asked him.
He laughed. “Nope,” he said. “I parked right here.” And he kicked the car in front of us.
I stared.
It was...not the sort of car I expected a rock star to drive. It wasn’t sleek. It wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t even new.
Hell, it hadn’t even been manufactured in this century. It was the least rock star ride I had ever seen.
“You drive a station wagon?” I said.
“Oldsmobile Cutlass,” he replied, and he sounded almost proud of this fact.
“Wow,” was all I could muster.
His grin broadened. “Yup. She’s a beauty.”
I nodded. “She sure is something.”
He laughed and then, with a quick dip, set me down on the hood of the car. I was so off balance that I nearly fell over backwards, but his warm hands wrapped around my upper arms and pulled me upright, steadying me. Without thinking I put my hands on his chest to maintain my balance, and my thighs parted. Through the dimness of my alcohol fogged brain, I felt the heavy texture of denim on the insides of my knees, and I realized Manny’s hips had come to rest between my legs.
My mouth went abruptly dry and I looked up into his golden eyes. All thought was obliterated by the sudden roar of blood thundering through my body.
A wicked smile played on his lips. The darkness of the parking lot was just enough to cast his face into dark and light, and every sharp line of shadow only served to underscore the masculinity of his face.
He leaned in, and I groped for something to say, something to make sense of all of this.
“Why am I on the hood of your car?”
The words tumbled out of my mouth. Inane, nonsensical.
Smooth, I thought. Very smooth. If he really had been going to kiss me, then I was the perfect cockblocker for myself. Not that I wanted to kiss him. I mean, I did, but it wasn’t a good idea. At all.
I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. They curved into a wicked smile.
“That’s what you want to know?” he said. “Why you’re on the hood of my car?”
I nodded, stupidly.
His wicked smile grew wider. “Because you have no shoes on, you don’t know what nasty shit is in the parking lot, and I’d rather kiss you than take you to the hospital for a tetanus shot.”
Kiss?
My breath caught. “What?” I said. “I...thought you were joking about that...”
One thick brow arched in a perfect expression of irony. “Why would I joke about that?” he asked.
I swallowed. “Because...because I’m Rebecca’s stodgy older sister?” My brain wasn’t working right. His nearness and the alcohol in my blood both conspired to make me stupid.
Manny didn’t notice how stupid I was being, probably because he didn’t know me. Didn’t know me at all. Of course he wouldn’t notice anything amiss. That was probably why he thought I was a good candidate for kissing.
His other brow rose. “So you’re Rebecca’s, er, stodgy older sister. Okay. Is that supposed to be a problem?”
I laughed nervously. “If you find stodgy attractive, that’s fine. I’m not going to complain...”
“I find you attractive.”
Does not compute. I longed to ask him why, but that was the sort of thing only desperate girls with low self-esteem and no self-awareness did, and I was plenty self-aware.
“Oh,” I said instead.
He tilted his head, his golden eyes narrowing a fraction. “Do you not want to make out with me?” For some reason, his perfectly accented English suddenly seemed to have a whisper of Spanish.
But there was no time to think about that, because oh god. Oh god.
Yes, I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to more than almost anything else in the world. It was just...not a good idea. It was a very bad idea. Even if this was a one-night stand, even if all we did was kiss, it would make things so awkward in the future. Kent and Rebecca weren’t breaking up any time soon so the band wasn’t going anywhere. The next time we met, it would not be...pleasant.
So I thought: No, I don’t want to make every interaction from here on out as awkward as a pig trying to plié, as my mother used to say.
It sounded good in my head, so I said it out loud, except somehow between my brain and my mouth the message became mangled, and this came out:
“I do want to.”
I barely heard my own breathless voice, so loud was the pounding of my heart. Manny, however, heard it quite clearly.
“Good,” he said quietly, and leaned toward me.
My breath wouldn’t come as he closed in. Time slowed down and stretched out, and he drew closer and closer, his face filling my vision, and there was nothing but the hot scent of cloves and spice and beer. Beneath my hands his skin burned through his clothes, searing my palms, and the rough abrasion of his jeans on the tender insides of my thighs sent bolts of arousal directly to the hot, damp space between my legs. The hot, damp, exposed space.
I should have worn panties, was the last thing I thought before his lips touched mine, and all thought was obliterated.
Softly, sweetly, his mouth glided over mine, and it seemed as though tiny sparks leapt between us, ignited by our proximity. His hands slid up my arms, one snaki
ng down my spine and the other traveling up, diving into my hair and tangling with the dark waves I’d messily pinned together with bobby pins. His silken lips moved against mine as, above the rush of blood in my ears, I heard each little pin release its locks and fall down to the hood of his car with a patter of clinks. My hands were still on his chest as he pulled me closer, and then he opened his mouth, his tongue slipping out to touch my lips, and I found myself opening for him.
This...this is a bad idea, the rational part of me was saying, but I could barely hear it over the pounding of my heart and the suddenly harsh scrape of breath in the dark night air, and then his tongue was in my mouth and there was no more room for doubts because his hands were on my body and in my hair and tipping me back onto the hood of his car and oh, god, his hips were between my legs and somehow I was wide open to him, ready for him to take me. The breeze blew around us, caressing up my leg and to the hot space between my thighs, and I shivered as it touched me there. Why, oh why hadn’t I worn panties?
His large warm hands were under my shirt now, lifting it up and scraping up my spine, and my fingers had fastened themselves in his hair. It was just as thick and luscious as it looked, and I curled my hands into fists, holding him to me as he tangled his tongue with mine, ran it along my teeth, slipped it over my lips and touched the insides of my cheeks, and I gasped as I realized there was a hard little bead in the center of it.
He did have a pierced tongue. Oh my god.
We were slipping and sliding together, and I felt his hand go to my hip, squeezing my ass as he rolled his hips into mine. Then the bulge of his cock nudged me through his jeans and his intentions were suddenly, intensely clear.
I should stop this, I thought, but I couldn’t. Didn’t want to. I hadn’t gotten laid in over a year. I hadn’t even been kissed. I was a woman starving, desperate for touch, for sex and love, and if I couldn’t get the last one I’d settle for the first two.
I wasn’t the sort of girl who had casual sex, not at all. I was the sort of girl who planned every sexual encounter. Even sex was part of The Plan. And fucking a guy I barely knew in a parking lot was not at all part of my plan. I didn’t even know if you could plan for something like that. I had to stop this. Somehow...
But then Manny’s lips left mine and transferred to my throat, nipping and nuzzling, lapping at the sensitive skin over my pulse points, and I squealed and sighed in his arms, overwhelmed and so hot for him that I couldn’t even speak. Hands that meant to pull him away from me instead drew him closer, and when I gasped for breath my breasts thrust up into his chest, and he took the invitation to nose apart my blouse and lavish hot, open-mouthed kisses on my breasts as one hand pulled me close and the other—
—the other inched up the inside of my thigh.
I hadn’t even noticed it, and by the time I realized what was happening it was too late to divert him. I wouldn’t have diverted him even if I could have. Instead I let his hand slip up and up, between my legs, until he brushed against the hot, damp lips of my pussy.
Electric shock raced through me, arching my back as I thrust up into him, and I heard him make a noise of surprised joy upon finding me exposed and ready for him. My ass slipped and slid across the hood of his car as I squirmed, trying to get close to him, trying to put his hand exactly where I needed it.
Against my breasts came the buzz of a moan, and then he was pulling back, pushing me down onto the hood of his car until I lay sprawled in the light of the streetlamps and the moon. Neon lights gilded his outline in the dark, and I writhed and groaned as his fingers played with my pussy, tickling and circling, first here, then there.
“Manny,” I said. I didn’t know what I was asking, or what I meant by saying his name, but over my own moans I heard him sigh.
“You are beautiful,” he said, and then one long, calloused finger dipped inside me, slipping past my defenses.
Oh, I thought. Oh no. We couldn’t fuck. Not here. Not out in the open like this. It would be so...so wrong. So dangerous. So against the rules. I had to stop him. I had to say something. Something like, this is a bad idea, please don’t try to fuck me.
Only more politely.
I blinked slowly, stupidly, and tried to rally my thoughts.
Except Manny didn’t try to fuck me. Instead of unzipping his jeans, he bent over me, planting quick kisses along my body and through my clothes before he knelt between my legs.
Is he...? Oh my god, is he actually going to—
Then heat of his mouth found the tiny nub at the apex of my slick inner lips, and before I could say anything he silenced me by swirling his tongue over my clit and plunging another finger inside me.
Oh god, I thought. Oh god, oh god. Oh. My. God.
He was actually doing it. He was going down on me.
Say no, I thought, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Only an idiot would say no to this, and all signs to the contrary, I really wasn’t that stupid, so I shoved all my common sense away and let him carry me away. Again.
Soft sighs escaped from my throat as he buried his face in my pussy, the harshness of his beard abrading the tender skin of my inner thighs. My eyes were closed, and when I forced them open I could hardly believe that I was seeing the sky and the stars, the moon burning down through the wispy clouds, the flashing neon, the thudding boom of music inside the bar, and here I was, spread-eagled and exposed as Emmanuel Reyes fucked me with his tongue on the hood of his car.
Under me the metal buckled and bounced as I writhed, bolts of pleasure rocketing through me and sending fireworks exploding inside my head as I shivered and melted beneath his ministrations. Every flick of his tongue, every soft suck, every thrust of his fingers, every sly nibble of his teeth made my hips buck and my toes curl. The little metal bead embedded in the center of his tongue rubbed and rolled over my clit, intensifying each sweet stroke. My skirt was now hiked up around my hips and I was bare to the world.
The sudden realization that anyone could walk out of the party and find Manny’s head buried between my legs hit me like a sledgehammer, but instead of dousing my arousal the thought only heightened it.
Me, Rose Alton, Miss Perfect who never touched a drink until she was twenty-one, who followed all the rules, who knew exactly how one misstep could ruin your life—I was face-fucking a near-stranger on the hood of a car in the middle of a parking lot in front of a seedy bar in downtown LA.
Deep in my belly I felt my core tighten, coiling up and readying for release. Desperately I raked my hands through Manny’s hair as he curled his finger deep inside me, his tongue wandering everywhere, lapping up my juices and coaxing even more moans from my lips.
I wanted to stop him before we were caught, but instead of pulling him away my fingers tangled in his thick locks and held him to me, my hips thrusting upwards, begging him to take me over the edge. I had the barest presence of mind to turn my face to the bar, watching the door to make certain no one was coming out, but even as I did so I saw movement.
The bar door opened and a small stream of people, people I had never met, spilled out beneath the neon lights. They were laughing raucously, and the music from inside the bar pounded out into the night, covering the sounds of Manny’s mouth on my pussy and my body rolling over the hood of his car. They only had to turn this way and they would see me, my legs spread and Manny inside me, suckling at my clit, and then it would be all over—
My orgasm hit me like a meteorite, exploding across my body. Shockwaves rocked through me, so powerful that every muscle suddenly seized up, locking tight in a paroxysm of pure, white hot pleasure, and at the last second I shoved my fist into my mouth and bit down, hard, to keep myself from screaming.
My eyes screwed shut as the waves of heat roared through me, but distantly I realized that Manny had lifted his head from between my legs and now he hovered over me, his hand working my clenching core, deft and quick, keeping me dancing in the fire, drawing it out like a maestro would draw out the final note of a symphony.
I clamped my thighs around his hand, keeping him in place, afraid that he would pull away before I was done, but I shouldn’t have worried. He stayed with me, stroking and curling, until after what seemed like eternity the pleasure subsided, leaving me breathless and limp.
My fist fell away from my mouth, and I was certain I would have painful purple bruises where my teeth had dug into my skin tomorrow. Then I remembered the small crowd that had come out of the bar and I stiffened, my eyes flying open to see if we had been caught.
I didn’t get that far. Instead, when I opened my eyes, I saw Manny hovering over me in the darkness, his mouth curved into a smile so self-satisfied that if I hadn’t been the one who had just been rocked to the core I would have thought he was the one who’d just had the hummer in the parking lot.
...a hummer in a parking lot. My god. Had I really just done that?
I whipped my head around, looking back at the front of the bar. The people who had come out of the door were still there, and they seemed completely oblivious to us, hidden in the shadows of the parking lot. A burst of laughter rolled toward us as they talked, and as I watched they started passing a joint around between them.
Okay. We were safe. Extremely safe. Pot made people very dumb and they were probably all very drunk, too. I shouldn’t have worried. We were well hidden in the dark. Turning back to Manny I stared up at him, trying to catch my breath and order my thoughts. It wasn’t quite working.
“Um,” I said. “What...? I don’t...” I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say. Instead I let my hands do the talking, running up his back, then over his shoulders and down his chest. Beneath my fingers I felt his abdomen flex, sending a shiver through me, but I knew better. A guy gives you head, and you’re generally expected to reciprocate. Usually I wasn’t into that, but in the aftermath of the incredible orgasm he had given me I felt I could definitely enjoy exploring his cock.
But to my surprise he gently caught my hands in his own and brought them up to his mouth and, slowly, sensuously, kissed each fingertip. I swallowed and licked my lips. “Um,” I said. “Don’t you want me to...you know, return the favor?” I smiled at him shyly.
