Hooked

by Christine Manzari

  “Touch yourself,” I begged him.

  “Can’t,” he choked out. His arms hung at his sides, his fists clenching and unclenching. I could tell he wanted to touch something—either me or himself—but I couldn’t figure out what was taking him so long to decide.

  “Come on, Huck,” I pleaded between pants. “Don’t let me get there alone.” I was almost there. My hand knew just how fast and how far to go. I wanted to watch him as I came, but the buildup was too much and my head tilted back as my eyes closed.

  Suddenly, my hand was pulled out of my pants and I was yanked off the dresser. A second later I was sprawled across the comforter of the bed and barely five seconds after that, my pants had joined Huck’s clothes on the floor.

  “It’s about damn time,” I murmured as he crawled over top of me.

  His smile was wicked and heated. “You think I’d let you go there without me? I just wanted to watch for a little bit.” He bent down to kiss me at the same time his hand was slipping inside my panties, sliding two fingers where I needed them most—inside me.

  “Huck,” I moaned.

  “Say it again,” he demanded, moving his hand with all the desperation he had avoided earlier.

  I said his name again and I was rewarded with the most delicious sensation of his fingers moving in and out. His hand moved perfectly on me, causing me to writhe under him. He let my voice command his pace as I chanted his name. Faster. Harder. Louder. When I fell to pieces around his fingers, his lips crashed into mine and I continued to say his name as he kissed me.

  “Are you done?” I panted. I sure as hell wasn’t.

  Huck hovered over top of me, his elbows on either side of my head, his knees between my legs. He smirked. “Not even close, Ms. Unafraid.”

  “What are you waiting for, Pretty Boy?”

  He dipped his hips down, his hard body sliding against my slick skin. It felt heavenly. It felt sinful. It felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get him inside me. He pulled away just as I started to move against him.

  “Just taking my time. I want to make this last.”

  “Stop talking,” I said, gripping his ass and pulling him down again. The sound that came out of him was a mix between a growl and a hum. I soon heard the rip of foil and felt the shift of his body as he put a condom on. He didn’t even bother to take my thong off, he just moved the material to the side and then slowly pushed inside me, letting me feel every glorious inch of him.

  “God,” he moaned.

  “You can call me Goddess,” I purred back, twining my legs with his to hold him down onto me.

  Instead of answering, his lips pressed against the curve of my neck as his hips found a rhythm with mine—rubbing, grinding, and sending shockwaves through my body. I wanted it slow and fast and everywhere in between. It was like I couldn’t get close enough and my hips bucked up into him with a desperation I had no control over. My fingers were buried in his hair and his hands and lips were everywhere on my body. Frantic. Consuming. Wild. Perfect.

  Huck’s palms went to the mattress on either side of me and he lifted up so that he could stare down at my face. “So beautiful,” he murmured. His gaze broke away from mine and scanned the length of my body before his eyes settled on where he moved in and out of me. “So fucking good,” he groaned.

  Yes it was. It had never been this good. I couldn’t even think about the fact that I’d just met him last night. All that mattered in that moment was that our bodies were drawn to one another with the gravity of souls that had known each other for years.

  His body continued to worship mine, his fingers finding the places I ached to feel him, his mouth murmuring things against my skin I couldn’t understand, and didn’t care to. It was the way he spoke, not the things he said, that had the pressure building again deep inside.

  “Huck.” I could barely speak and I gripped his shoulders, pulling him against me as his hips slammed into mine. I was so close. So, so close. “Huck,” I moaned again, begging him to release me.

  “I love the way you say my name.”

  He leaned back on his knees, pulling my legs up and over his thighs, gripping my waist. I reached down between us, my fingers curling to either side of him as he thrust into me. That earned me an appreciative moan from him. I couldn’t stop touching him. I couldn’t stop saying his name. I couldn’t stop my body from shattering into a million pieces of pleasure as he filled me over and over again.

  “Cat,” he groaned in response. And then his mouth was on mine trading my name for his as he joined me in falling over the edge.

  ***

  “That was some first date,” he said, winding a piece of my tousled hair around his finger.

  “I like you, too.” I could have said something sarcastic. In fact, fifteen different comments popped in my head, but I was still too high on him to allow my mouth and brain to have free rein and ruin the night like it normally would.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “I have plans with Jay in the morning to go shopping,” I said, letting my displeasure show with a grimace. I hated shopping, but Jay dragged me along when he was on the prowl to add to his already overflowing wardrobe. He’d decided he needed a new outfit for our friend Tony’s Labor Day party on Monday night and he insisted I needed a new outfit, too. “Afterwards, we’re having lunch. What about you?”

  “I’m seeing you tomorrow night.” Huck twirled the chunk of hair around his finger and then slipped his hand in my hair and pulled me in for a kiss.

  “Is that so?”

  “I have to. I can’t get enough.”

  “That was my plan all along.” I pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth before scattering kisses along his jaw to his ear. His voice hummed appreciatively in his chest as I kissed along his neck with flicks of my tongue and nips of my teeth.

  He grabbed my shoulders and flipped me on my back, looking down at my face as he propped himself up with his arms, his lower body settled between my legs. “I’m so glad I moved here. This was just the change I needed.”

  We were moving in the direction of the topics we had avoided all day. I didn’t want to know his past, I didn’t want to talk about things that might ruin the perfection of the day. So I did the only thing I could think of to get him to stop talking. I kissed him and begged him to christen the bed with me again.

  “Only if you stay with me tonight,” he negotiated.

  “If I don’t, is that a deal breaker?” I asked, my eyebrows raised.

  Huck smiled. “Don’t call my bluff, just say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  When I walked into the apartment the following morning, Jay was making omelets for breakfast.

  “Hey Baby Girl, want one?”

  I tossed my keys on the island and set my bag of graffiti tools on the floor. “A big one please.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “That’s what I said,” I countered, laughing.

  “Really now? Work up an appetite did you?”

  “Did you have any doubts?”

  “Well, you haven’t worked up an appetite in quite a long time, so yes. Besides, I thought you’d chase him off well before lunch.”

  I walked over to the counter and reached into the bowl of diced vegetables that Jay was sprinkling on the omelet. I began pulling out squares of red peppers to eat.

  “I tried running him off, but he was bewitched by my personality.”

  “Bewitched? By your personality? Are you sure he’s mentally stable?”

  “Probably not after last night. I totally blew his mind.”

  Jay turned away from the stove to give me a disgusted look. I lifted my hand to show him two fingers and silently mouthed the word “twice.” He just grinned and shook his head.

  “What?” I asked. “You’re the one that’s always complaining I don’t date enough. You’re the one that urged me to talk to him. You’re the one that said I should go on a date with him.”

  “I didn’t tell
you to fuck him on the first date.”

  “You didn’t tell me not to,” I reasoned.

  Jay nodded. “True. Well, was Pretty Boy any good?”

  “I just told you I blew his mind twice. What do you think?”

  “I think twice is a little short of three times,” he said flipping an omelet onto a plate and then pouring more eggs into the hot pan for another one.

  “When was the last time you blew someone’s mind three times in one night?” I countered.

  Jay turned away from the stove again, “If you must know . . .”

  “Never mind,” I interrupted him. “I don’t need details.”

  “You asked.”

  “It was a rhetorical question. Anyway, maybe I’ll make up for it tonight. We have another date.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “I don’t know yet. I told him to come by around six. Maybe I’ll take him down to the trapeze school by the pier.”

  Jay’s eyebrows creased. “I thought you wanted to go for round three tonight.”

  “I just said so, didn’t I?”

  “Don’t take the man to trapeze school then. Don’t you know anything about dating and foreplay?”

  “You could ask him,” I taunted, grabbing a fork out of the drawer and attacking the steaming omelet Jay had put in front of me.

  “No thanks. I don’t want to lose my appetite,” he replied. “Thinking about you naked . . .” he shivered dramatically. “Ugh.”

  I just laughed.

  ***

  Jay tossed our bags into the trunk of his car. “I can’t believe we came to Beverly Hills to shop and you bought a book.”

  “I never promised I’d get an outfit. I merely said I’d go shopping with you if you bought me lunch. I shopped and even bought something.”

  “You bought a book. You’re hopeless, Cat.”

  “We’re going to a party at Tony’s, not for a walk on the red carpet. I’m pretty sure I can find something in my closet that will suffice for a pool party.”

  “It’s not a pool party.”

  “People always end up swimming at Tony’s.”

  “That’s because you like to push them into the pool once they get too drunk to defend themselves against your wickedness.”

  I walked around to the back of the car as he slammed the trunk shut. “And that’s my fault?”

  Jay let out an exasperated sigh. “Where do you want to eat lunch, Menace?”

  “Menace?”

  “There is no other word to describe you. You’re a complete menace.”

  “I resemble that,” I relented. “How about Fresh Brothers?”

  “Pizza?”

  I shrugged. “I’m in the mood for Italian.”

  “Pizza is not Italian, Cat,” Jay admonished. “Not the way they do it anyway. I’m taking you to Bedford & Burns.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “They have pizza.”

  “Hopeless,” Jay muttered. I knew without looking at him that he was rolling his eyes and I smiled.

  Bedford & Burns wasn’t far from where we’d parked so we walked to the restaurant. It had just the right amount of class and swank for Jay. It made me uncomfortable because it reminded me of “Weekday Cat” and the places I took clients to lunch. I looked at my watch as the hostess walked us to our table.

  “We have to head home after this,” I said. “It’s already three and Huck is showing up at six.”

  “I should force you into another round of shopping until you buy something that isn’t black or held together by safety pins.”

  “You’re already pushing this whole friendship thing with a shopping trip in Beverly Hills,” I warned him. “Don’t make me late for my date, I know where you sleep.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home in time. I’m actually kind of curious about this whole pretty-boy-from-the-other-side-of-the-tracks thing you two have going on. I feel like Ducky in Pretty in Pink.”

  “Ducky wasn’t gay and you’re not in love with me,” I pointed out. “Plus, if you ever caught me dressed in a hideous pink dress that I made myself, it’s because I’m in a coffin and my mother picked out my clothes.”

  “Good point. On all three matters,” Jay said, opening his menu.

  Twenty minutes later I was devouring my Margherita pizza. Jay had gotten a fancy salmon dish and was eating it daintily as if he was afraid he might offend it. How could this be the same guy who regularly scarfed down a bucket of greasy fries on the Venice Beach boardwalk? My phone started ringing and I dug through my messenger bag, excited to talk to Huck. As my fingers closed around the phone, however, I realized that I’d never given him my number, I’d just told him to show up at my place. I pulled out the phone to see that it was my mother calling. I groaned, dropping my head in my hand.

  “Who is it?” Jay asked.

  “Anita.”

  “You better answer that.”

  I knew I had to. Phone calls from my mom were like ticking time bombs. The longer you ignored them, the more dangerous they became. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Catherine,” she said. “I’m so glad I got you.”

  I cringed at the use of my full name, but not as much as I normally would have. I could tell that something was wrong. My mother’s voice was off. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I just wanted to invite you to dinner tonight.”

  “Tonight’s not a good time, how about I come see you for lunch tomorrow?” I didn’t want to miss my date with Huck.

  “I can’t, I have an appointment. I have to see you tonight.”

  “Why tonight?”

  “Please, Catherine. I don’t want to tell you over the phone. Can we please meet? Where are you? I went by your place and you weren’t there.”

  My mom went to my apartment? Alarm bells were definitely going off. She hated Venice Beach and she never came by my apartment unless she absolutely had to. What was so important that she couldn’t tell me over the phone? My mother was dramatic, but she never had any problem being dramatic over the phone. In fact, it was her usual method of operation.

  “I’m in Beverly Hills with Jay. We’re eating at Bedford & Burns.”

  “Can you ask him to drop you off at the house? I . . . we need to talk. Alone. I can take you home afterwards. Please.”

  “Mom, I kind of had plans tonight.”

  “Please,” she begged.

  My mother never begged. She strongly suggested and she defiantly demanded, but she never begged. Until today. I knew I didn’t have a choice. As much as I wanted to see Huck again, I had to deal with whatever mess my mother had going on.

  “Sure, Mom.” I sighed. “See you in thirty.”

  My mom hung up and I found my appetite had disappeared with her voice. “I need a couple of favors,” I said to Jay.

  “Anything.” He reached over to grab my hand. Despite our banter, Jay and I loved each other like brother and sister. I knew he’d always have my back. He was also one of the few people who knew the amount of crazy my mom was capable of at times.

  “Can you drop me off at my mom’s? And when Huck comes over tonight, can you tell him I’m sorry I can’t hang out with him? I’d call and tell him myself, but we never exchanged numbers.”

  “Sure,” Jay said, giving my hand a squeeze, ignoring the fact that I’d slept with a guy I had no way of contacting. “And I promise to only flirt a little bit with him.”

  “You’re the best friend anyone could ask for.”

  “I know. You totally don’t deserve me,” he joked.

  My mom’s house was close to Beverly Hills, where the art gallery she owned was located. I could never decide which was more pretentious, the house or the gallery. Both screamed money. Lots of it. My mom could never understand why I wanted nothing to do with either of them. But then again, she never really understood me. She loved me—I’ve always known that—but I didn’t make sense in her orderly, polished world of refinement.

  It’s not that I hated money, I liked it as much as anyone else
. I just didn’t really care for Beverly Hills or being an art curator. My mom had gleefully sent me to college to study art with the thought that someday I’d take over the gallery for her, maybe even sell some of my artwork there. She nearly had an aneurysm when I told her I had no plans to do either and took it as a great personal insult that I was a graphic designer. She thought I was a sell-out.

  But to me, art was personal. It was an expression. It was my heart. And I just couldn’t bear the thought of hanging my heart in a gallery for critical judgment. Selling my art felt like selling a piece of my soul. I guess you could say that painting on the graffiti walls was hanging my heart, too, but the people that saw it weren’t paying for it, taking it, or keeping it. They could hate it or love it, but all in all, they just experienced it. And that’s what I wanted my art to be—an experience for everyone, not just for rich, pretentious assholes.

  At least with graphic design, I could use my artistic talent, but in a way that I didn’t mind I was doing it for money. My mother said it made no sense. But then again, I’m not sure I’d ever made much sense to her. I was the dark to her light, the wild to her culture, the low to her high.

  She buzzed us through the front gate and Jay drove up her driveway which was cradled by a well-manicured lawn. He offered to come in with me, but I declined and waved him off before the gates could close and trap him in with me and whatever emotional disaster awaited.

  The fountain in front of the house was burbling cheerily and the house behind it was a polished fortress of gilded excess, an eight bedroom monstrosity that was home to my mother and her overly large reputation. I pushed open the massive wooden front door, calling out to let her know I was there.

  “In the kitchen, Honey,” she called, her voice tight.

  The aroma of coffee and freshly baked cookies made my stomach roll, but not out of hunger. My mom made the best chocolate chip cookies I’d ever tasted, but she only made them when she had bad news to deliver. When my goldfish went belly up, she made chocolate chip cookies. Whenever my dad forgot to pick me up for his weekend visit, a cookie would make it better. When she ran over my bike with her car, I got a cookie. When it was time to make funeral arrangements for my father, it was also time for cookies. My mother was incapable of breaking bad news without a tray of freshly baked cookies. She didn’t seem to notice that I’d lost my appetite for them years ago, once I noticed the pattern.