Then take me, damn it! “Mmmmm.”
He pushes in deeper with his fingertips, just to the first joint. “Oh, yesssssss.” He strokes in, out, to the side and presses—“Oh! Fuck!”—takes them out.
Damn it!
And, still, endlessly, up above, his tongue mirrors his motions below.
I’m entranced, hypnotically pushing down and forward against his fingers, needing that cellular explosion again.
My body’s Jell-O, melted onto this couch in eternal wonderment of Deck’s magical fingers as they dance inside me. My hand grasps at his neck. This is nice, this is OK. We settle into a rhythm, and the mad, furious need relaxes in me as well. My whole body relaxes. And the squish of my labia sounds like mythical violins.
We kiss, he plays, we kiss, and I writhe.
I could do this forever.
And we do, we do it for a while, dinner long forgotten except for that eternal aroma (“It’ll be good cold as well,” he said when I mentioned it once), just lying here, playing, “making out.”
And it’s heaven. Pure freaking heaven.
My baby. My boy.
My man.
-4-
We’re walking to the bedroom, my eyes at half-mast from desire, when Deck’s phone rings. He looks at it casually, as if doing it from some automatic response mechanism in the mind: Bell rings, dog slavers. Phone rings, you look at it. But when he sees it, instead of simply looking away and carrying on walking, he stops. My hand, which is in his, gets squeezed briefly. Then his fingers loosen around it, and I feel suddenly untethered.
“Deck, everything OK?”
His back is to me, he’s looking at his phone. “Blaze, uhm, it’s the team lawyer. And...looks like I missed a bunch of texts. I...I just need to look into this quickly.”
“Sure. Of course.” I’m still hot, but I’m now also a little worried. Surely they couldn’t take that underage crap seriously! There were so many witnesses who saw what happened! She thrust herself at him!
Deck calls. “Justin, yeah, what’s up.” Silence. “M-hmm. M-hmmm. ... No— WHAT!? That’s INSANE!”
My heart sinks. My skin goes ice-cold. I stumble back onto the couch as if the floor were moving.
“Justin, THAT’S A LIE!” Deck looks over at me. Rage and terror fill his eyes all at the same time. “I can’t believe this! And how does she plan— Yeah, fine. Yes! I’ll listen! ... ... ... Uh-huh. ... Unheard of. ... What crap! ... Yeah. Yeah, whatever.” He looks at me again. I’m playing with my hands, sliding my pants back on.
And I so wanted to see my name on his back again...
Here we are, only a few hours into throwing all concerns and worries away, a few hours from declaring to the Universe, Fuck you, asshole! We’re in love and we’re gonna take whatever you throw at us!
And the Universe has responded.
And Deck looks nervous.
“Yeah, uhm, sure. ... No, not tonight.”
Whatever this is I want us to face it. To face it now! “Deck,” I whisper, “tonight is fine if you must.”
He looks over at me, so much worry and fear in his eyes. He’s aged ten years since he’s picked up his phone. His brow is deeply furrowed, his eyes, slits of hatred. I repeat my statement, because this looks majorly important. “Tonight is fine!”
He sighs, doesn’t even bother arguing, and that’s the final piece of evidence I need to know it really is important. Or that it really is very, very bad.
“OK, Justin. Sure, tonight, uhm”—he looks at the dinner table—“an hour from now. No”—he looks at the dinner table again—“one and a half. ... Sure, no later. ... Fine, yeah. OK. Later.”
He clicks the phone off, looks over at me with black fear, hefts the phone up and down. “It’s, uhm, Tat—Tatiana Watkins.”
I hate that name.
I see The Universe start laughing, a black demon in the sky with red eyes and long yellow teeth. Thought you could fuck with me, eh, Blaze? That you two could just have at it again, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
The Universe’s laughs echo in the chasms of my hollow mind.
“...Blaze.”
“Huh?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard ‘Tatiana Watkins,’ then I blanked out. Sorry.”
“She’s suing me for Sexual Assault, Blaze. Sexual Assault. Do you know what that’s a euphemism for?”
I do, but that answer evades me for the moment. It’s too ugly, too sick and horrible to even mention.
Deck throws his phone against the nearest wall. It smashes. I flinch.
Thunder bursts outside like the final cackle from the Underworld. I jump minutely off the seat.
Then Deck shouts again. “FUCK!” and its loudness seems more menacing than the thunder.
I thought I knew Fear before.
I didn’t.
Me and Fear are only just getting acquainted.
Because now I’m afraid. Now I’m really afraid.
PART III
FOURTEEN
JACKY
-1-
Declan Cox
Over three years ago...
I promised to tell you the truth in this story, not to score brownie points.
Here’s the truth:
She was down on her knees, looking up at me with her Fuck Me eyes, undoing my belt, licking her lips and seemingly about to devour me completely. Dalya was on the bed. Redhead Sammy wasn’t with us this night.
I was drunk. I was always drunk. Probably also a little high as well.
“Oh, darlin, suck him good, honey. Suck him real good!” Dalya egged us on from her erotic laid-back pose as her hefty inner thigh was being caressed by her hand. Her other hand held a bottle of Jack. She took a deep swig while her hand just caressed her nether lips, tickled them.
Dalya liked to watch.
What am I doing here?
It was a thought that appeared occasionally. I drowned it with my own bottle of Jack. And the thought was gone.
We really loved good ole Jacky. Jacky the pain-number. Jacky the problem-solver.
And Jacky the idiot-maker.
I swallowed, waiting for it, waiting for Tatiana do undo me, to rip my belt off and do what she’d been threatening.
And then she did it.
She was a pro, a real pro. She kept me on the edge like a vampire’s mistress sucking only just enough blood to keep you weak and hooked. I mean, she was good at it. She didn’t take me to the max, didn’t make me explode.
And all the while...I drank.
Deck, what are you do—
And then I drank some more. The thought disappeared.
When I was about ready to burst, she stood, pushed her hand down my throbbing shaft once, lifted, pulled down, then—on her feet now—put her other hand behind my neck and pulled me to her. Her lips were fractions of an inch from my ear. “Fuck me hard now, Declan Cox. Fuck me like you never fucked anyone. Make me scream. Stick your sexy fat cock inside my swollen pussy and fuck me!” She pulled once down on my manhood, almost sending me over the edge. “But before you do that, you’re gonna have to chase me, baby.”
And she fled to the back wall, put her back against it, slid her hand down her mound and put another finger on her mouth seductively. Then she took that finger away and curled it toward herself, calling me. She widened slightly.
I strode to her, flagpole standing. Jacky-Bourbon sloshing in the bottle in my hand. And she ran away, did the same thing: Hand down her mound, other finger to the mouth. And then she called me.
I strode faster, staggered a little. Laughed—that drunken laugh where you’re not quite sure if something is funny or not. And she ran. Dalya giggled. Tatiana teased. “Oh, baby, you need to be a little rougher, honey. A little badder!”
I was a little confused. “You want me to be bad?” The words were semi-slurs.
“Oh so bad.” Her famous husky voice.
I went to her. She ran. I took a long swig of Jacky.
“Uh-uh, baby.
” She swayed her finger back and forth. “We got a witness here. No need to worry. Be rough, honey. Grab my arm and take me if you want me! Because I’m not gonna come to you willingly. Hurt me!”
I felt my cock drop a little. Drunk as I was...something wasn’t right here...
“Oh, the rough kind doesn’t do it for you?” she said.
“No, it doesn’t.”
A thought...of a girl with green eyes I’d once loved...appeared like a wisp of smoke in my— Huh?
I drowned it! Gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp!
“Just a little then. Pull my arm behind my back, fuck me hard from behind, against this wall, Sexy Decky.”
I walked over to her. There were two of her now. I focused hard.
She whispered, “Rough!”
I drank some Jacky. She grabbed the bottle and flung it against the wall! It splattered with a smash. “Forget your damn booze and fuck me goddamnit!”
That pissed me off. The bottle had been only half-empty. Ever the optimist...
I grabbed her wrists.
“Rougher than that!”
I turned her. Still swaying...
“ROUGHER! Pull my arm up! Hurt me!”
My cock fell a little more.
Then she pulled out the missiles: “Oh, baby.” Her voice was so husky. “It’ll turn me on so much if you do it! Did that Blaze bitch never like it rough? Was she too...scared-waredy, hmmm?”
I yanked her arm up behind her back.
“Harder, baby. Pull it up— Ouch!”
I dropped the arm.
“No, no! That was good. That was oh so good! Do it again! Yank it up— Oh yeah! Ouch, that’s good!”
She whimpered.
“OH, GOD, YES!”
It made her hot.
It made me...uncomfortable.
“ROUGHER, Deck! Hurt me!”
“Tatiana, you’re turning me off quickly.”
“Oh for fuck’s suck just fucken do me like a man! The keyword is ‘chickens.’ If I don’t say ‘chickens’ then it ain’t No!”
When she said No the first few times, I stopped. Then she slapped me, actually slapped me!, warned me that “chickens” means no.
And that just pissed me off some more.
So I did her. ‘Like a man.’
It was over quick.
And she never said Chickens.
But she did say No. She said it a lot. Even screamed it a few times. Screamed it like she meant it.
She was smiling in the end, her forehead a little red from when I pushed her against the wall and entered her, her arm clearly paining at the shoulder, her wrist red. “Oh, God, baby. That made me so horny! Let’s do it again.”
I wasn’t horny anymore.
I felt pretty damn sobered up.
So she slid onto the bed with Dalya. And the last thing I heard were female groans and lips kissing and lots of giggles as I pulled my pants up, did my buckle up, snapped my pants to, and walked out the door.
The next day I sent the videos and photos over to their respective husbands.
I’d had enough.
-2-
Today...
Blaze and I walk into Smith and Jameson’s boardroom in the city. The building’s empty except for Justin Jameson, Jr., Senior Partner, and (I’m surprised to see) Brent Coldon, Giants Head of PR.
Justin’s a mid-thirties guy with slick black hair and a boyish face. Suited up, blue tie. It’s not Justin’s firm, it’s his daddy’s.
He looks over at Blaze and shifts in his seat uncomfortably.
“She’s staying,” I say.
Justin stands. “Fine by me.” He heads over to Blaze and extends his hand. “Blaze, nice to meet you. This is Brent Coldon, PR for The Giants. Take a seat.”
We sit.
Justin cuts to the chase.
He mentions “a tape.”
My stomach sinks.
He plays me “the tape.” Blaze squirms, and I figure this is penance for what I did, for being with Tatiana at all. Penance on earth. It’s mortifying, and the shame and embarrassment wash over me like sewerage from a pump.
I tell Justin the tape’s been edited and cut to make it seem like it wasn’t consensual. I also tell him I have my own copy of that tape that completely exonerates me. “I learned my lesson the first time I was with her.”
He smiles, brightly, then looks over at Brent.
For a dude in PR, Brent’s rather large and round. He’s got thick glasses and a plump belly, but he’s a killer when it comes to Damage Control. Which I’m starting to appreciate this is all about. Tatiana doesn’t have a case.
But that’s clearly not the point. TMZ and National Enquirer have their own juries, and they’re pretty biased...
Brent steeples his hands. “Deck, from a legal standpoint, Justin tells me this may or may not be a problem. The point is, she has Lerrington and Co. on the case. Biggest law firm this side of the Mississippi. They’ll put up a fight. They’ll drag your name through the mud. My personal opinion is that this Watkins lady is doing one of the partners—”
“Probably Lerrington himself,” Justin cuts in, flicking a pen and looking at some notes.
“—or, right, maybe even the big boss. So she’s not going to expend too much income to take you down if that’s the case.”
“A limitless supply of legal funds,” I interject.
“Yes,” says Justin. “Because if she is...” He stops, looks at Blaze, clears his throat, then continues. “If she is sticking this old fuck’s cock—sorry, Blaze, but we can’t beat around the bush here—if she is doing that, well...apparently this woman’s mouth is like God’s gift of Milk and Honey to the Male Anatomy.”
Blaze shifts, but keeps her gaze firm, doing her best to keep her cool.
Justin continues. “So, if he’s giving it to her, he’ll take this case all the way, write it off as a tax write-off, and get his... Well, you get the point.”
I look over at PR Man Brent. “So, it’s a PR issue,” I say.
Brent sits forward. “A major one, Deck.” He looks at Justin, back at me. “What’s the story with this fifteen-year-old yesterday? What happened there, Deck?”
So she was fifteen, then. Christ!
“Nothing happened, Brent. You know me. You know I screw around—sorry, screwed around—but the worst I’ve done is a little DUI.”
Justin and Brent look at Blaze one more time, then back at me. They don’t believe that I could actually love her, that I’d be faithful to her. They know me as “America’s Bad Boy.” They know me by my actions since I’ve been with the team, by what the press has said about me.
They know my Alter Ego.
Brent scratches his nose, pushes his glasses up. “Deck, this is not whether I know you or not. I—we—need to know what happened with this fifteen-year-old. Just the facts. All the facts. Then we need to know all the facts about what happened with this Tatiana broad. It’s no question you—” He stops, swallows. His eyes go to Blaze again.
“You can talk in front of Blaze, Brent. She knows all my dirty secrets.” And if she didn’t before, she will now.
She needs to know. Open. No more secrets. She needs to know just how black my past became. Because if we’re gonna push through this, it can’t be a fairy-tale anymore. It was chasing the fairy-tale that destroyed us. And if we do survive this, nothing can take us down.
But if we don’t...
I don’t ponder that.
Brent’s face lightens suddenly. Justin almost looks like he’s about to fall off his chair.
I think they realize it now, that I love her. That Blaze is different.
“OK, fine,” Brent says, “so it’s no question you did her. And her friends.” He waits, eyes to Blaze again, continues. “But we need to know more, all of it.”
“That’ll take a while, Brent.”
Justin cuts in. “Deck, I think this Tatiana is willing to settle. It’s too early to tell, but I got it out of her. Normally they put on the thumbscrews and the
n bring on the settlement idea. But I could tell this bitch is greedy. Whatever happened between you and her, consensual or not—
“It was all consensual, Justin!”
“—I don’t care. I do care that this thing might go for years, put the team in a bad light. Maybe they’ll drop you because of the heat on you. I think she might want that. I think if that happens, she’s won. So I played it cool, threw it out there, just to see how she would react. Old Man Lerrington—can you believe he’s on this case personally? Christ. He told her not to answer, but her eyes perked up when I brought up money.” Justin waits, fixes his gaze on us. “Four million, that’s her number. She’d make this all go away for four mil. You have that kind of money. Heck, even the team could put that kind of money out for you. They have a reserve for this kind of shit.” He doodles on his notepad.
I’m stunned. They just want to make it all go away...
They think I’m guilty. Or, worse, they don’t care. Heck, if I was guilty I’d deserve to get put through the mill! This is a sick crime she’s accused me of! But Justin and Brent don’t care about the justice of it all. Why else would Brent be here? Mr. PR. Mr. Make-All-the-Ugly-Problems-Disappear.
Brent says, “It could not have come at a worse possible time, Deck. Yesterday’s incident...is a problem.”
“Problem” is the PR euphemism for Major Fuck-Up.
I scratch the veneer of the expensive boardroom table, ponder the veneer of the world we live in, just a covering for all the crap underneath all the gloss. But this is no time to be poetic. I look up at both of them. “Is that what you want from me? An answer as to whether I’ll let this lying bitch take my money away because of a lie? And what happens when the next person takes a shot at me? Will you want me to pay up then as well?”
They clear their throats. “It’ll hit the papers soon, Deck,” Justin says. “The sooner we can dangle that carrot in front of her, the more likely we are to keep her quiet. The more likely we are of preventing this thing hitting the courts or, worse, the papers.”
“Then dangle it. But don’t commit to it.”
“A commitment would guarantee it goes away. We could bring out contracts. I got the feeling this woman’s a serious gold-digger. She’d never screw up a non-disclosure contract with this much money involved. She wants the dough, Deck. And it’ll shut her up.”
Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three) Page 26
