by Angel Payne
“Yeah, he’s a pain in my ass.”
“I think it sounds like he cares about you too. Like I do.”
The barista came over with our fruity concoctions just in time, saving me from having to address Talia’s comment about Mac’s feelings for me. Or so I thought it had.
“Are you falling for him, Tay?” She took a sip of her drink and grimaced.
“Are you kidding me? You know me, right? You know my history. I’m not the relationship type.” I shook my head from left to right in disbelief.
“People change.” She tilted her head to the side, and her long braid fell over her shoulder. “I thought the same thing about myself. It just took the right guy, or guys”—she laughed lightly—“to come along and show me that everything I thought I knew about myself was completely wrong. If I’d kept my head so buried in the sand, think of all the happiness I would’ve missed out on. And for what? A guy like Gavin?” She shuddered just thinking about the abusive asshole she’d been with before Drake and Fletcher had swept her off her feet.
“And you know better than anyone. There have been some hard times. Some really hard times. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns getting to where we are today. And I don’t kid myself into thinking we won’t face crappy times in the future. But that’s just life. And I believe that our love is what will see us through.” She shrugged and took another sip of her drink. “Oh, Christ. This is disgusting. It tastes like grass.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s what you get for ordering something called the Green Goddess.”
“I guess so. Yuck.”
“Here, have some of mine.” I pushed my drink toward her on the counter.
“No, you drink that. You need the calories. In fact, we aren’t leaving until you finish every bit of that.” She pushed the drink back in front of me.
I put my head down on the counter dramatically. “At least mine tastes good. Mango Mania was a much better choice, but we’re going to be here awhile.” It was a pretty big drink.
“I think I’m falling for him.” I took a big sip from the straw, studying the contents of the glass like it was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen so I didn’t have to meet her wide-eyed reaction to my admission.
“I was kind of picking up on that. But honey, that’s not a bad thing. You deserve someone special in your life. We all do.”
“Something bad will happen to ruin it. Just like it always does when a good thing comes along in my life.” I paused a second or two, continuing when I sensed she was going to ask me to elaborate. “When I was five, when we were still in Georgia, I found a kitten in our apartment complex. Janet said I could keep it if I took care of it. And for the four days she was with us, I loved her so much. I named her Barbie because she had blond hair and she was so pretty, like my Barbie doll. I took care of her like a good mama. I fed her and brushed her and cleaned her litter box. I was the best kitty mama ever. Then I broke out in hives and itchy watery eyes, and Janet took her away from me and said I could never have a cat again because I was allergic. A part of me died that day. Honestly, I thought I would never get over that loss. I cried myself to sleep every night for a month. When Janet wasn’t around, I would go outside and look for her where I found her in the first place, thinking maybe she was as sad without me as I was without her and she would be waiting for me to come find her again. It was my first time I think I felt devastating loss.”
Talia looked like she was going to start crying, and I immediately wanted to take my story back. I hated when people pitied me more than anything else.
“I didn’t tell you that so you’d pity me, Talia. I’m trying to make you understand that every time I have something good, something that I love and cherish, I have to give it up. It’s been a pattern in my life. That was just the first memory I have of it. But then the shitty things in my life that I would gladly give up, the things that suck the life out of me, like, oh…say…my loser mother…that I can’t seem to get away from no matter what I do? She just keeps turning back up like a bad fucking penny. Every time I think she’s finally gone, nope, there she is again.
“So I’ve finally figured it’s karma. In a past life, or maybe a combination of past lives, I must have been a really, really bad motherfucker. And now? I’m just paying my dues. I don’t deserve happiness, and it’s just something I have to deal with.”
“I’ve never heard something so absurd in my life, Taylor Mathews.” Talia shook her head like she wasn’t buying my theory. But it didn’t matter what she thought.
“Well, believe what you want. I’m the one who’s been living with it, and it’s the only thing that makes sense. Don’t get me wrong. I like Mac. He’s smart as hell, and he’s one of the few guys I haven’t scared off with my bad attitude. And holy shit, can we just talk about the sex for a minute? I think the guy went to the sex school of the devil himself. And that’s absolutely fine by me, because, frankly, I am so tired of guys who treat me like a porcelain doll or some treasure or some stupid crap like that. But it will fade in time. It always does. But for now, we’ll fuck and have fun, and when it’s over”—I shrugged—“it will be over.”
“That simple, huh? Boy, you have it all figured out. Must be nice.” She rolled her eyes, patronizing me and pissing me off.
“I don’t see the need to overcomplicate things, Talia. Life’s just too short.” I took another big gulp of my smoothie, tossing the straw to the side and just going for it straight from the glass. I regretted it about ten seconds later when the brain freeze struck like gangbusters and my head felt like it would shatter into a million tiny pieces like a broken windshield in a head-on collision.
“Hey, you okay?” My friend grabbed my arm.
“Yep. Brain freeze. It’ll pass in a minute.” I squeezed my temples with my palms.
“Maybe I should call Mac?”
“For a brain freeze? Are you serious?”
“I bet he’d rush right over here.” She smiled as though she had come up with a pretty clever idea.
“And I would knock you out so he’d have to treat you instead.”
We both laughed and talked a little bit about work while she tried to force down more of her Green Goddess before admitting she’d wasted seven dollars and ninety-five cents.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” She slung her gym bag over her shoulder and tossed her nasty drink in the trash by the door.
“Maybe. I have a few calls to make in the field in the morning. Depending on how long they take and what your afternoon looks like.”
“True. Okay, well call me at least after you get in. Maybe we can try to flip that tire over again or something.” She motioned over to the corner of the gym where the tractor tire was resting in the up position. Damn, someone actually stood that thing upright.
“That is the stupidest workout I’ve ever done.” I couldn’t help but laugh after I said it.
“Right? But don’t tell Drake.” We hugged and walked out onto the street.
“Your secret’s safe with me. Maybe we should try shaking the ropes next time?”
We both burst out laughing and went in separate directions toward our cars. When I got into mine and started the engine, I pulled out my phone to check my messages. Three were work-related, two confirming appointments for the morning and one checking the receipt of an emailed contract I had been waiting for. I could deal with that when I got home.
The other seven messages were from one very impatient Dr. Maclain Stone. Various demands, pleas, and suggestions on how I could or should be returning his calls in a timelier fashion, with more social grace and my favorite of all—with threats of sexual torture—if I didn’t do his bidding immediately. I deleted each and every one after listening to them—twice—put my car into gear and left the downtown corridor toward Mission Valley.
Oh, silly boy. Doesn’t he know not to poke at the girl with the bad attitude? It ruffled my pointy feathers more than if he’d just asked nicely. Eventually he’d catch on. Until
then, it was a fun game to watch him flap in the breeze. I turned up the radio and sang out loud to Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life.” That song could be my personal anthem.
That’s right, Mac…Save me from the nothing I’ve become.
Chapter Twelve
Mac
“I’m sorry for the things I said when it was winter.”
When I was in my surgery residency, I found that quote somewhere. Through the years, it had really stuck with me—so much so, I had it painted on a plaque at some farmer’s market in the Gold Coast district and then hung in my Chicago home office.
Winters in Chicago were physically and mentally brutal. I remember thinking, while packing everything before the move four months ago, that the plaque would be a nice decoration for the San Diego office and nothing more. That I’d never have to find those words meaningful again.
So, on that glorious sunny afternoon, as I dropped the plaque into the trash can in my Oceanside home office, it was cause for celebration.
“Babe!”
No answer. Then I remembered why. She was tied to a stool at my breakfast bar, makeshift gag made from her white Jockey panties stuffed in her smart little mouth. I strolled into the kitchen, hands in my cargo shorts, as though I didn’t have a care in the world, evil grin on my face.
“Have you learned your lesson yet?” I bent forward at the waist to peer into her angry, denim-blue eyes.
The glare she shot me already said no, but I couldn’t wait to hear the creative “clown” insults she’d devised while stewing there for the past twenty minutes. Before removing the gag, I leaned in and kissed down the slender column of her neck, ending at her shoulder—where I sank my teeth into her gorgeous white flesh.
Her moan escaped around the cotton filling her mouth, making my dick twitch in my shorts. I backed away from her, or we would never leave the house on time to make our appointment at the track.
I pulled her damp underwear from her mouth and tossed it on the countertop. Tilting my head to the side, I regarded her with playful eyes. “You better go get ready. We need to leave here in an hour if we want to be at the track on time.” I started untying her hands that were held to the bar stool with some kitchen twine looped through the wrought-iron latticework of the back rest.
She took a deep breath, ready to lay into me, but then thought better of it. Maybe her twenty-minute kinky time out had taken the edge off her sour mood that morning.
We were headed to the Thermal Club, a private, members-only racetrack just outside of Palm Springs, for an amazing weekend at one of the villas situated on the course itself. Now that spring was upon us and the rainy season was gone, track conditions were perfect. And can I take a moment to laugh at the rainy season in California? Four inches total fell between December and March, and April here seemed much more like summer in every other part of the United States, so I wasn’t holding my breath for additional precipitation.
There was a method to my madness, so to speak, besides spending more time with this woman. I was considering buying one of the villas on the track and also housing my car collection there. Translation? The sales staff smelled fresh blood in the water so had set up the weekend stay to let me “experience the lifestyle firsthand.” Now, I had a friend along too and couldn’t wait to get Taylor out on the track for a few laps. The club had loaner cars for members to put through their paces, so we were due for a really great weekend.
“I don’t know what to wear.” Seemed like a pretty typical girl response.
“Jeans will be fine. Jeans and a T-shirt. Something casual. And I plan on having you naked when we aren’t on the track, so you won’t have to worry about anything else.”
“That’s not much help, you realize.” She stood there with her hands on her hips, trying to look frustrated but looking adorable and sexy instead.
I shrugged. “I was just being honest.”
“What about dinner? Do you think we’ll go out at all? Palm Springs has a pretty great foodie scene. Maybe we should hit Palm Canyon at least one night?”
“I’ll check out Yelp while you pack. Deal?” Since I was so new to the area, I usually followed her lead on that sort of thing.
“Yes!” She gave me a high-five as she walked past me, and on the down swing, I smacked her ass super-hard.
“Dick!” she shouted without thinking.
I turned around and caught her wrist so fast she didn’t expect it and couldn’t evade my grasp.
“Do you need another time out, young lady?” I ground out very close to her lips.
“I think you’re taking this new weird Daddy thing a little too far, don’t you?” She tried to break the hold I had on her wrist while she spoke.
I took the wrist I still held and forced her hand to my steel-hard cock encased in my shorts. “Nah, I think it’s working really well for us both.”
Her eyes widened impossibly far, taking over the better part of the upper third of her face, entrancing me with the deep-blue color.
I mashed my lips against hers, kissing her so roughly I risked leaving a bruise. I said against her mouth when I was through, “I can’t seem to get enough of you, Taylor Mathews. I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but it’s like some sort of drug I can’t—no, I don’t want to stop. Now go get ready before I fuck you again, right here in my living room.”
Insatiable clown. She mouthed the words, but I knew without a doubt what she’d said.
I bit her lip, softly at first, putting more pressure on until she squeaked.
When I released her, she hurried off down the hall. When she got to my room, where many of her things were collecting now too, she looked back over her shoulder and touched her lip, grinning, just before disappearing around the corner of the master suite.
Goddamn, I was in deep with this girl. Deep, dirty shit, and I didn’t want out anytime soon. We’d been seeing each other at least once a week for the past four months, and I couldn’t get enough of her smart, sassy, energetic, beautiful, giving, kind, adventurous spirit. She never passed up a chance to do something kind for someone else, which was brand-new territory for me.
Over the holidays she’d shown me a whole new definition of the giving spirit. Together, we’d volunteered at two homeless shelters, a food pantry, and an abused women’s center. I’d had no idea of the amount of help that was needed right in my own backyard, and it made feel like a self-centered prick.
Taylor helped alleviate some of the guilt, though, by signing me up for some regularly scheduled volunteer hours at the shelter’s free health clinic and wrapping the schedule I would be volunteering as one of my Christmas presents. I now did routine check-ups, gave flu shots, and did preliminary screenings for major illnesses that would need further care but, when detected early, stood a decent chance of being cured. Surprisingly, it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to help the underprivileged population, and that was something I would never have discovered without my amazing girlfriend’s influence.
I still had to be very careful about referring to her as my girlfriend, however. Something about the term sent her into a version of a PTSD episode like I’d never seen. It definitely stemmed from something associated with Janet, her mother, but I couldn’t put all the pieces together on my own, and when I asked her about it, she clammed up. When I suggested she introduce me to her mother, she all but went into the fetal position in the corner of her room, and I couldn’t have a normal conversation with her for almost a week. Finally, a good fucking one night after dinner brought her out of her funk. Thank God for our low-key BDSM dynamic, because there were times it was the only way I could bring her back to me.
She had confided in me that she had seen a therapist several times throughout her life, but I suspected she still could benefit from one. But really, couldn’t we all from time to time?
In about thirty minutes, we were heading north on the Fifteen toward a town called Temecula. Taylor insisted she knew a “back way” to Palm Springs that would thrill the drive
r in me, so I trusted her since she was a Southern California native. And boy did she deliver on her promise. We had the best time winding down into the Coachella Valley and really putting my m235i through its paces. Many car fans and motorcycle drivers took that road just for the passion of driving and really opened up around the hairpin turns and straightaways. That route would be a new favorite if I bought a villa at the Thermal Club and especially if I found a convertible I just couldn’t say no to. Taylor pealed with laughter around the turns and looked a little pale a few times too when I drifted without the traction control feature engaged in my little rocket.
“But you trust me, right?” I really just wanted to hear her say it out loud. I already knew deep down that she did.
“Of course I do. I just didn’t expect that to happen. Did you do that on purpose?”
“Yes. That’s what your car can do. With very little effort. That’s why it has that nickname.”
“Can you show me how to do that?” she asked after thinking about it for a bit.
“If you want me to.” I couldn’t hold back my grin.
“Is it hard?”
“Kind of depends on how you want to make it happen.”
She looked thoughtful, trying to figure out the physics of the drifting maneuver. It was adorable, and, frankly, erotic as hell to a gearhead like me.
“Are we almost there? I have to pee. Like really bad.”
“Well, according to nav, we’re in Palm Springs, but Thermal is still about thirty minutes. Why don’t we stop in town here? I could fill up and maybe grab something cold to drink anyway. It’s a lot hotter than I expected.”
“Uh yeah…hello? Sonoran Desert?” She grinned, knowing she was being a smartass.
I reached over and pinched her inner thigh. “Are you always looking for trouble?”
“Are you always so uptight?” she volleyed right back.
“Me? Uptight? Please.”
“You’re joking, right?”
I got out of the car without answering and went through the process to start the gas pump. She got out of her side and came to stand beside me.
