“Your pussy is the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted, Grace,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking sweet.”
My nipples tingle under my blouse. “I like the way you taste, too. And the way you feel in my mouth. You were so hard for me.”
“I’m hard for you right now, too. If I were there I’d get you on your knees and show you just how hard I am.”
The memory of his hands around my head as he thrust his cock into my mouth makes me inhale a shaky breath.
He hears it, and makes that sexy growly noise I love so much.
“How do you want me to fuck you, sweetheart? The first time, for real—how should I fuck you? From behind, on your knees, your wrists tied behind your back?”
The sound that comes out of my throat is one I’m almost certain I’ve never made before. It doesn’t even really sound human, but more animal, guttural and low.
“Yes, you like that idea.” He chuckles. “Or how about I tie you to one of the posts on the bed in your room and fuck you that way, standing up, your legs wrapped around my waist?”
I lick my lips. There’s an ache between my legs, growing hotter.
When I don’t say anything, Brody’s voice gets harder, somehow even sexier.
“Or how about if I make you suck my hard cock while I punish your perfect ass for coming before you were told, and then I tie you up, and then I lick your sweet little clit until you’re begging me for release, and then I spank you some more until your ass is pink with my handprints and you’re dripping wet all down your thighs, and then I fuck you, nice and slow and deep, sucking and biting your nipples as my cock drives into your throbbing pussy, until you can’t take it anymore and you come so hard all the neighbors will hear you screaming my name.”
I’m panting. Literally panting, like I just ran a sprint. My nipples throb. The ache between my legs has turned into a pulse. I restlessly press my thighs together, and feel how wet I am.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, that. I want it that way, the first official time.”
“Say please.”
Holy fuck, the way he says those words. The power, the confidence, the absolute dominance in his tone. It makes me whimper with want.
“I’m waiting, Grace.”
I whisper, “Please.”
There’s a moment where we just breathe at each other. Then Brody asks, “Are you there alone?”
“Yes. I mean, the main door outside is unlocked so anyone could come in—”
“Go lock it.”
He doesn’t have to ask me twice. I jump to my feet and hustle my ass across the office so fast I practically leave burn marks in the carpet. I lock the outer door to the waiting room, and then I close and lock my office door as well, for good measure. When I sit back down at my desk, I’m breathless with anticipation.
“Okay. Done.”
“Do you have a mirror in your office? A big one, like a wall mirror?”
I slowly swivel in my chair and look at the full-length mirror I installed on the back of my office door so I could check my appearance before meeting with clients. Reflected in it, I’m bright red, my cheeks burning. Barely breathing, I say, “Yes.”
“Tell me what you see.”
I know what he wants, so I give it to him. “I see me . . . all flushed and excited, with red cheeks, sitting in my office chair.”
He makes a sound of approval. “Describe what you’re wearing.”
He already knows because he spent the morning with me, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to point that out.
“A white blouse that doesn’t fit too well across the chest, a black pencil skirt, and a pair of nude heels that are a size too big. They’re Chloe’s, because Kat’s feet are smaller.”
I’m flustered so I’m adding unimportant details, but Brody doesn’t seem to care. He says, “A blouse that doesn’t fit? We can’t have that. Unbutton it.”
With shaking fingers, I unhook the small white buttons down the front of the blouse. Beneath it I’m braless.
“Tell me,” Brody demands.
“I’ve unbuttoned it, down to the top of my skirt. I’m not wearing anything underneath. I can see my skin. My cleavage.”
His voice caressing, he says, “Open it wider. Tell me what you see.”
I use my free hand to open the shirt wider, lifting it back until both my breasts are exposed. I’ve never really looked at myself like this, when I’m aroused. I look . . . different.
I whisper, “There’s a flush all over my chest. My nipples are hard. They’re pink against my pale skin, dark pink. The pulse is pounding in my neck.”
Brody softly groans. “God, I love your nipples. Touch them.”
I cup a breast in my hand, rubbing my thumb back and forth over the taut nub of my nipple, and then do the same to the other one. Sparks fly along all my nerve endings, headed in a fiery path straight down to my pussy. I shift restlessly in the chair.
“It feels good,” I whisper, panting softly. “Tingly. I can feel it between my legs when I touch my nipples, like there’s a current connecting them.”
“Pull up your skirt.”
His tone is tense, focused, almost harsh. I obey him without hesitation, sliding my skirt up my thighs until I see the shadowed cleft between them, reflected in the mirror like a secret waiting to be discovered. I whisper, “I’m not wearing panties.”
“I know you’re not, baby. You have one pair at my house, the pair you wore under the polka-dot dress, but you didn’t want to wear those today, did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?” The question is so gentle, yet so full of dark laughter it makes me shiver.
He knows why I didn’t wear panties today.
He knows exactly why.
“For you,” I whisper.
I’m mesmerized by the rapid rise and fall of my chest, the way the sunlight from the windows spills across my bare thighs, trembling ever so slightly, how dark my eyes look with the pupils dilated so wide. In the afternoon light my hair is the color of blood.
I’ve been told I’m pretty by enough men to believe it must be true, but now, sitting in my comfortable leather office chair with my legs spread and my breasts exposed, staring at myself in a state of full arousal in a mirror I’ve only ever used to brush a stray wrinkle from a suit jacket, I feel that “pretty” is too anemic, too dainty a word for the savage creature staring back at me.
I’m not pretty. I’ve never been less pretty in my life, or felt more fucking beautiful.
“You make me feel so beautiful,” I say, my voice breaking.
“Because you are, Grace. You are.”
My heart is beating like a hammer. I can’t catch my breath. My hands are damp and shaky.
“You know what I want you to do,” says Brody softly.
As if I’m a spectator, I watch as my hand drifts from the arm of the chair, over my thigh, and dips slowly between my legs. I suck in a breath when I feel how ready I am.
“Tell me.”
“I’m very wet, and sensitive. It feels . . . swollen. Hot.”
He growls, “Stroke your hot little pussy, Grace. Let me hear you stroke it.”
The moment my fingers glide over my engorged clitoris, I moan.
Brody mutters an oath under his breath. “Tonight I’m gonna spank you while you play with yourself.”
“Yes,” I whisper, my fingers moving faster. “Yes, please.”
“Spread your legs wider, baby. Watch yourself in the mirror.”
I can’t get closer to the mirror because of the phone cord, so instead of scooting the chair over to the upholstered ottoman a few feet away, I simply raise my leg and rest it on the edge of the desk. The view is disturbingly intimate, and undeniably sexy.
Listening to my ragged breaths, Brody softly warns, “Don’t make me ask you again to tell me what you see.”
“I’m so wet I’m glistening. My pussy lips are plump, pink, and very . . .”
“V
ery what, baby?”
“Voluptuous? Provocative? I don’t know the right word. They just look . . .”
He hisses, “Like they need to be fucked.”
“Oh.” It’s hardly a sound from my mouth, just a little breath of startled air, forced out by the sudden, violent urge to feel him inside me, to have his cock and mouth and hands possessing me, bending me to his will.
“Stroke your clit, Grace. Pinch it between your fingers and stroke it.”
My fingers glide through my wetness. I pinch my clit as he instructed, moaning because it feels so good. My hips start to rock in time with the strokes of my fingertips.
“Faster,” he says, his voice tense and hot.
“Yes,” I whisper, watching myself in the mirror. “Oh God, Brody. I’m so wet. I’m getting it all over my hand, the inside of my thighs. It’s slipping down to my ass.”
A snarl of frustration comes through the phone. “My cock is throbbing so hard for you right now. I’m standing in a conference room with glass windows in the middle of the record label’s offices, and I’m half a second away from taking out my dick and coming all over this big polished oak table. Fuck, Grace. Fuck.”
I say breathlessly, “My thigh muscles are all tensed. My hips are rocking back and forth. My breasts are bouncing I’m rocking so hard. I’m riding my hand and wishing it was you and oh—oh—”
“Come for me, Grace,” commands Brody in a throaty rasp.
Instantly, I do.
It hits me so hard I can’t make any noise at first. My back arches. My eyes snap shut. My head slams against the headrest. In Chloe’s too-big shoes, my toes curl.
The first clench is an entire body clench, every muscle tensed to full capacity. Then come the contractions, waves of pulsing that radiate violently from my core. They shake my body, one after another. I slide my fingers inside myself, desperate to be filled, and cry out.
In my ear Brody is whispering, “Yes baby come for me God you’re so beautiful you’re a fucking dream my gorgeous fucking girl. Come—come!”
I sob, climaxing around my fingers, lost to the strong, rhythmic tightening and releasing of my inner muscles, lost to the sensation, to the pleasure, to him.
I’m lost to him. Brought to orgasm by the simple magic of Brody’s words in my ear, I’m completely lost.
And I’m terrified.
This—this—is what I’ve been so careful to avoid all along. This loss of boundaries. This opening of the gates.
This love bullshit, which ruins more lives than it saves, and now has me so unexpectedly in its clutches. Me, the tiger! Me, the lion! Me, the biggest disbeliever of them all!
Panting, sweating, shaking helplessly, I open my eyes and look at myself in the mirror once more.
I’m a mess. A satisfied, terrified mess.
When Brody asks me to tell him what I see, I can’t answer.
There aren’t any words for when a woman discovers every fear she’s ever had are all starting to come true.
BRODY
After the phone call with Grace, I have another hour of meetings with the execs at my label, but all I can think about is her.
Why can’t I keep my promise that we’re going to be friends for the next month?
Every time she touches me I fall apart. She doesn’t even have to touch me, just hearing her voice makes me fall apart. All the willpower in the world couldn’t save me from this reckless drive to have her.
I hate myself for being so fucking selfish. Her life is in upheaval, everything she owned except her car and the clothes on her back is gone, and all I can think about is getting her naked.
I’m a dick. A dick with no self-control, the worst kind.
And here I was, so convinced after I saw the priest that day on the way to the hospital that I could do the right thing. That I could do good. That by doing good by her somehow I could make restitution for the time I’d been so bad.
I give myself a stern talking-to on the drive from Hollywood back to Malibu. Traffic is shitty, as usual, so it’s a long talk. I make a stop to pick up a gift for Grace, and get home just as it’s getting dark.
She isn’t there yet. It doesn’t surprise me how disappointed I am by that.
Magda gives me a lifted eyebrow when I walk in the door, but I’m too lost in my own thoughts to pay much attention. I pour myself a Scotch, go outside to the back patio, and stand looking out at the ocean as I nurse my drink, listening to my demon chuckle darkly in my ear.
GRACE
Twenty minutes. That’s how long it takes to file a claim with my insurance company for the loss of everything I own. I’ve had manicures that lasted longer.
Luckily I kept extremely detailed records of all my belongings, right down to photographs, purchase receipts, and written value estimates from my jeweler for each piece of jewelry in my collection. I’m no Elizabeth Taylor, but I did have some beautiful things.
It says a lot about me that I almost mourn my lost vibrator collection more.
It feels so strange to drive to Malibu instead of Century City when I head “home.” I’m putting quotes around the word in my head, because I refuse to allow myself to start thinking about Brody’s place as anything other than a temporary pit stop. That would be putting the cart waay before the horse. Even after shopping for three hours for new clothes, I’m still rattled by what happened today on the phone with him. I still feel like I’m walking around missing a layer of skin.
If I thought I was a goner before, now my armor has been completely stripped away. I’m just a bundle of exposed nerves, feeling everything too strongly.
I pass a hotel on Pacific Coast Highway and almost turn in the drive, but at the last second I convince myself not to be such a coward. A few more nights at Brody’s until I find a place won’t kill me. And he deserves, at the very least, to be kept informed of my plans.
Not that I have plans, per se, it’s more of a general sense of panic that I should be doing something more to keep myself safe.
How do people walk around like this, so soft and open, experiencing everything in such glaring color, such jarring volume? I feel so . . . naked, like an egg peeled out of its shell.
The first time I jumped out of a plane at twenty thousand feet I had the exact same sensation, only this time I’m not wearing a parachute.
About a mile out from Brody’s on PCH, my phone rings. I pick it up with the hands-free button on the steering wheel.
“Grace Stanton speaking.”
A deep baritone rumbles through the car. “Grace.”
“Marcus! How are you? Worn out from the three little piggies yet?”
“I just saw the news.”
About my building, he means. It’s been all over the local newspaper and news station.
His voice is full of concern when he asks, “You all right?”
I think about how to answer that. “I’m coping. It’s not the end of the world.” I laugh feebly. “Honestly, ex-fuckbuddy who’s been friendzoned, it’s not my demolished condo that’s the real problem.”
After a beat he makes a gentle noise of understanding. “It’s your demolished view of your heart as untouchable.”
My eyes widen. “You’re spooky, you know that? Seriously, how would you even know I was talking about Brody from what I said?”
“Not to be crass, but I’ve spent a lot of time inside you, Grace. I know you better than you think I do.”
I groan. “God, you make me sound like a bus station.”
He chuckles. “At least you’re an upscale bus station. I spent the remainder of the weekend at the Greyhound depot on skid row.”
“I told you to watch out for that cross-eyed blonde.”
“Well, a man can’t eat filet mignon every night. Every once in a while a greasy burger from a street truck hits the spot just right.”
I can’t help but laugh. “So in a ten-second phone call we’ve gone from comparing vaginas to public transportation and cuts of meat. I’m not sure how much lower
this conversation can go. If you make a joke about beef curtains I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Oh,” he says, sounding interested. “You were planning on speaking to me again? Even though you tossed my ass in the trash like yesterday’s newspaper?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re probably just being so pissy because the blonde stole your wallet, right?”
“I’m just worried about you,” he replies. “I know you hate being out of control, and between your new boy and your house blowing up, I’m thinking you’re feeling about as out of control as it gets.”
Fine. So he’s insightful. So I might not have been as concrete and untouchable as I thought. If he knows me so well, maybe he can help me get a better grip on things, help me see things from a different perspective.
I ask, “You’re a man, right?”
Marcus makes this disbelieving, offended snort. I imagine him sitting at his desk, staring at the phone, wondering who the crazy person is on the other end that he accidentally called.
“Last time I checked. Great to know I made such a lasting impression.”
“What I meant to say was that I need a man’s opinion.”
He sounds interested again. “You need a male opinion? Since when?”
“Since right now. And don’t make me out like such a raging feminist, I take male opinions into consideration all the time when I’m making decisions.”
“Really? Name once.”
I try to think of an example, but all I can come up with is when I asked Nico for his opinion about Brody. And if I’m being honest, if Nico had replied that Brody was a major asshole and I should absolutely stay away from him, I doubt that would have made a difference.
I’ve been quiet too long, because Marcus says, “I already know you can’t so you can stop trying to think now. What’s the question?”
“Okay fine. If you told a woman who you were very attracted to that you wanted to be friends for a period of time to get to know her better before having sex, what would the reason be?”
Without a single breath of hesitation Marcus says, “Guilt.”
I blink. “Guilt?”
“Yes. Because I did something wrong and I’m trying to make it right by denying myself the thing I really want from her. You told me this once yourself when we were talking about how fucked-up most people’s relationships are. When a man exhibits sexual ambivalence toward his partner, it usually comes down to one of three things: a Madonna-whore complex, confusion related to his sexual orientation, or guilt.”
Sin With Me (Bad Habit) Page 21
