“Ha! Of course you’re lookin’ for that scrawny ass. Ain’t nobody as pretty as you come ‘round here askin’ for me in a long time.”
“Marky,” Dallas says, stepping out into the heat with us, “don’t be giving my friend any shit. Of course she didn’t come here looking for you.” Dallas looks at me and grins lopsided. It’s unbelievably cute.
“Ha! Friend, my ass. You go in yonder and show her that pretty little thing you’ve been workin’ so long and hard on.”
Dallas shakes his head, his long honey strands coming loose from behind his ear. He pushes it back, and the gesture is so manly and alluring, I’m not sure why all men don’t wear their hair longer just so they can do that move right there and cause the women of the world to swoon at their feet.
Dallas waves me in, and I drop my eyes, embarrassed from imagining what else he can do with those hands. I follow him inside the cavernous garage—tools and sheets of metal everywhere, more so than when I usually come by. Same with car parts. And the car parked on the other side is now papered and taped up like it’s ready to be painted. “So that’s Marky?”
“Yeah, he never comes in on the weekends. Says he’s too old for that shit.” The smile on his face is so pure, it’s like he’s a child showing me his favorite toy in show-and-tell. His excitement is contagious. It runs through my whole body, and I’m almost giddy to see what he called me here for.
“Oh! I’ve been wanting to show you this too.” He grabs his bulky welding helmet. “Let’s go out back since Marky probably still has his ass parked out front.
I trail behind him through a heavy industrial door and out into an open yard. He turns me toward the east and hands me his welding helmet. “Put it on,” he says. “It shouldn’t stink that bad.”
I look at him with a grin. “It better not.” I put the helmet on, and Dallas closes the glass front. Thank God the helmet doesn’t stink.
He turns me around by my shoulder. “Now look up at the sun.”
I do and gasp. The colors of the sun going down in the west are brilliant. Rays of greens and purples and blues shoot across the sky. It’s amazing.
Dallas steps behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. He fits against me like he’s supposed to be here. “What do you think?”
“It’s so pretty,” I echo into the mask. We stand here as I look up at the sun much longer than I ever thought possible.
Dallas tilts his head slightly, and I swear he’s sniffing my hair before he pulls away. “Come on. I have something else to show you.”
This is it, what he called me here for. I’m so excited. I take off the helmet and hand it back to Dallas.
He holds the door for me as I pass through, and then walks beside me as he leads me to a large thing covered in a painting tarp. “This is my favorite piece.” He pulls the sheet off. “Belle Muhler.”
It’s a woman. Her back is arched and her arms are spread like she’s dancing, and her face beams with a smile. Her long metallic hair flows behind her in a circular wave with her body, creating motion in the sculpture where there isn’t any. It’s more stunning than the sun through his helmet. “Wow, Dallas. This is … just … wow! I can’t even express how beautiful this is.”
He grins. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it.” This belongs in a museum, or in a fountain at a casino. It looks high end and very expensive. “Who commissioned it?”
“Well, I haven’t sold it.” He casts his eyes away as he folds the tarp.
“Why not? It’s gorgeous!”
When he looks at me, heat courses from his gaze over my skin before gathering low in my belly. “I’m not ready to part with her yet.”
The expression on his face, along with his words, caresses me. It’s intimate, almost like he’s saying my name as we make love.
I don’t think he’s talking about the statue anymore. And the angle of the statue’s arms is familiar. “What did you call it when you pulled off the sheet?” I should’ve understood if I’d been paying more attention with my ears and not so sidetracked by my eyes.
He wipes over his mouth. The shop is about as hot as it is outside, but it’s more of a nervous tic. “Belle Muhler.”
Beautiful in French, and woman in Portuguese. Because my mom is from Brazil and my dad is French.
He must see it in my eyes when the pieces fall together in my head. “You’re the inspiration,” he says.
I look back up at the statue. The delicate curve of the neck, the long elegant fingers, the widening of the hips compared to the tiny waist. So much of me is in this statue.
This is Dallas’s art.
It’s beautiful.
And he’s saying I am his muse.
“This is what you needed my help with?” I ask, almost breathless. I was messing around the first day while here and danced along the floor. He captured one of my movements perfectly into this piece.
“This is it.” His aquatic eyes pierce me with an intensity I’ve never fallen victim to before. I can see myself sinking into the depths of those opalescent eyes and falling in love with him while I’m there. It scares me.
I walk around the statue to get out from under his scrutiny. “Dallas, you’re crazy to be majoring in finance. This is what you need to be doing. You’re amazing with metal.”
“I guess I always viewed this as a side job. It’s a lot easier to get work in finance than it is to sell chunks of iron.”
He surprises me back into the abyss of his eyes. “This is way beyond chunks of iron. It’s art. It’s timeless and brilliant.” Here’s a man who works to get metal so hot, he can mold it with his hands. Everything about him is so unexpected, I’m perplexed. I catch myself staring at his lips, comparing myself to the metal, thinking of his deft hands molding me to his will.
One, there’s definitely a chemistry between us, and two, there’s no way Dallas can miss it.
As if to prove my point, he closes the distance between us and casts his lips onto mine. His mouth is warm, his tongue sure. I let myself go, like I often do when I’m with Dallas, and let him take me where his will leads me.
He walks me backward until we reach a wall and he opens a flimsy door, pushing us inside, before closing the door and locking it behind us. It’s an office. An old oak desk sits at the far end, dented metal filing cabinets lining the faded green wall.
Dallas runs his hand down my leg and pulls it up over his hip. I allow him to mold me to him. The heat coursing through my body and building between my legs has me eager for whatever he’s willing to give me. He tugs on my standing leg, and I give it to him, wrapping my legs around his hips. He props me up against the wall next to the door and ravages my mouth with kisses so passionate, I’m moaning against his tongue. I’m utterly lost in him. In his smell, his slick tongue, his prickly facial hair, his hot breath on my cheek, and along my neck when he drops his kisses below my ear.
I run my fingers underneath his shirt, along the side of his toned abs. His skin is soft and slightly moist from the heat.
He moves one of his hands away from the wall and tucks it between us, adjusting himself in his pants so his erection is angled right as we make out against the wall. He moves his hand back to the wall to brace us and pushes his hips and his hard-on against me. It’s perfectly solid against the spot where I want no give.
I’m breathing heavy into his mouth, inhaling his exhales when there’s a loud metallic clank from the doorknob. Someone’s trying to open it.
Dallas freezes, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh my God! This is not happening right now.
“Damn it, Dallas. I have work to do.” Heavy footsteps trail away from the door. It’s Marky. Great, now we hear his boots against the floor. And I will forever be known to Marky as the girl who came to the shop and almost got it on with Dallas in the office.
But wait.
Marky has no clue how far along we were before he interrupted us.
Cue mortification.
Dallas waits until the fading footsteps are nearly gone, and then meets my eyes in question. His are heated. “He kind of ruined it, didn’t he?”
“Um, yeah.” He’s still hard beneath me, so I’m sure if I wasn’t fully aware of what we were about to do, and Marky as well, I’m sure we could keep going.
He steps back enough to let me drop my legs to the floor, but he kisses me before I can turn away. Even when our tempo has slowed exponentially, his mouth still moves with a passion foreign to me.
I step back before he spikes me to the point of no return. “Did you show me all you wanted me to come here to see?”
The seductive curve of his lips as he smiles lets me know I walked right into this one. “Mostly.”
I drop my gaze and bite my lip. “I better get back to pick Ava up from work.”
He props my chin up with the knuckle of his index finger, and kisses me one last time on the mouth. “Your place Sunday?”
“Yeah.” We’re meeting again to work on the initial paper for our class project. “But there’s no way I’m going out there by myself. You’re walking me out.”
He adjusts himself again and replies with a husky laugh before opening the door and leading me out toward the front.
I don’t see Marky anywhere, which is a miracle bestowed upon me by baby Jesus himself. I climb into Ava’s car and get the hell out of Dodge before Marky pops up.
“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from
which they never recovered.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
I TOLD Ava that Dallas was coming over to work on our project, and she made herself scarce. She didn’t have to—I actually wanted her to stay—but Ava is Ava.
When I open our dorm room to Dallas, he’s wearing a huge grin and carrying a bright yellow paper close to his chest.
“What’s that?” I ask warily. He steps in and I close the door behind him.
He hands it to me, and the first things I notice are the silhouette dancers on the bottom of the page. “Open auditions for new dancers!” the flyer reads.
I look up at him in question.
“It’s from that dance studio not far from campus. Jazz dancing, the kind you said you liked. And some hip-hop too.”
Aw, how thoughtful of him. I can’t believe he remembered what style of dance I said I preferred. That was way back on the first night we hung out at the Rusty Nail.
“And I already talked to the instructor. She said they’re in desperate need of a few more dancers, or they’ll have to close the studio.”
“Oh, so now I have to do it or it’s my fault they go under?”
“Exactly.” He grins.
“And how am I supposed to pay for it?” I could pull money out of savings, but I hadn’t planned on using that money for dance classes.
“I paid for the first couple of classes, but if you like it and want to continue, you’re on your own.” He says it like he’s so hard on me, as if what he’s done means nothing.
I jump at him and fling my arms around his neck. “Thank you.” My throat tightens and my chest constricts. I never thought I’d take another dance class again. It’s not because I’m afraid to, but more because I felt that part of my life had passed.
I step back and peer down at the flyer. I’m going to be dancing again.
“Do you want to see my dance album?” Yes, I am that person who carries a lot of memorabilia away to college with her.
“You have it?” he asks, surprised.
“I do, but you better promise not to make fun of how weird I look.”
“No way. I doubt that.”
I smile. “That you won’t make fun of me, or that I looked weird?”
He chuckles. “Both.”
I pull out the album anyway because the nostalgia overrules my concern over my appearance.
We sit on the couch Ava and I worked our asses off to get up the elevator and into our room last week. I flip through the book with him and provide detailed explanations of the dances. It’s strange how much I recall about the fights I had with the girls, the jealousy over the placements, and of course, the friends I made.
I pause toward the end of the album and show him the picture from the group dance we did to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The costumes were torn and mangled intentionally, but we still tried to find a way to make them sexy too. A tight tank top, midriff, shorter shorts.
Dallas’s laugh at my bony, powered face and ratted hair is deep and free, and mine flows behind his a little easier.
I stare down at the picture and remember that performance. Mom was “running late,” but Dad was there. The girl next to me in the picture, Lexi, ratted my hair in place of my no-show mother.
“This was one of my last performances.” I try to hide it but the pain seeps into my voice.
“Why’d you really stop dancing?”
I debate on whether to tell him. He’s told me personal things about his ordeal. He took a chance on me, and he keeps taking them. Maybe I should start taking a chance on him. “Well, at first it was because my mom blew the child support money and my dance class money on coke, heroin, meth—whatever she could get her hands on. And then my dad spent everything extra he had on getting me out of her custody, which was a good thing because she started using her body to get even more drugs.”
“Shit.” He runs his hands through his hair and down his neck. “I’m sorry. That explains why your mom wasn’t around then, huh?”
“Yeah.” I leave it at that because it all feels too close and heavy, and I can’t believe I just told him. It hasn’t been this raw in a long time. Maybe that’s why I never went back to dance—I’d remember how much I loved it and how bad it hurt me that Mom’s drugs were so much more important to her.
Some of this must be written in my face. Dallas tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and says, “I know that pain.” His eyes meet mine, and I lose myself in his blue depths. He leans over the album book sitting between us and hovers his lips over mine, close enough his exhale caresses my upper lip. He smells of spearmint gum.
I’m not sure who closes the distance, but his lips rest against mine softly before he puckers. Almost like he’s savoring the bare connection.
When he moves, it’s slow and deliberate. He drags his lips along mine as he opens and closes his mouth. The stroke of his tongue is delicate in its search.
He kisses me soft but passionately. He kisses my neck, my shoulder. He pulls the album from between us and sets it on the floor. Then he comes back and kisses my lips.
This is different than all the other times we’ve kissed. It’s still passionate, but the tempo is slower. Almost as if he’s seducing me.
I’m mostly certain I don’t want him stop.
Dallas slides his hands down my waist and tightens them enough to move me. He pulls me closer to the edge of the couch and kneels in front of me, resting between my legs.
He kisses my neck, inciting heat to flicker down my arm. My insides clench, giving in to his seduction.
He rubs his hands underneath my shirt, bunching the material with his thumbs, and pulls. The knuckles of his thumbs never leave contact with my skin. He pulls back slightly, but doesn’t release his grip on my shirt or my body. His eyes ravage me. “God, you’re so beautiful.”
The warmth from his mouth embraces my nipple when he sucks on it, flicking the tip with his tongue.
A low moan escapes my throat.
“Mmmmm,” he groans in response and pushes his hips against the edge of the couch. He wants me.
Why is he stalling?
He pulls my shirt over my head and rests it beside me on the back of the couch. His hands glide down my sides until he reaches my shorts and wraps his fingers around the band holding them up. I lift my hips while he pulls, catching my underwear on the way, and keeps going until it clears my toes. He drops the material to the floor and trails kisses up my shin, over my knee, tracing my thigh, and then along my hip. Every one of his ki
sses feels purposeful, like the placement of each one matters.
His fingers float over my waist, his other hand flat on my belly as he applies pressure for me to lie back.
I move as he directs and scoot down the couch so he has room to kneel up here with me. He crawls between my legs and strokes along the inside of my thighs with his palms. He wraps his hands under my legs and applies slight pressure with the tips of his fingers as he drags them back up my thighs.
I’m moist and ready for him, so I roll my hips to let him know.
A grin stretches across his lips, but his eyes are playful. He’s not going to give me what I want. Instead, he drops his head to my stomach and licks me below the bottom rib. The sensation is foreign but arousing.
I reach my hand underneath his shirt and trace the lean grooves up his side. His muscles tense and ripple with my touch. Hot breath flutters across my abdomen on his shameless sigh. The sound alone has me rocking my hips underneath him, but the warmth of his mouth over me has me on the verge of begging. I need him inside me. I need him to touch my wet folds. To spread me open and fill me.
“Dallas …” His name is barely audible in my moan. He’s ruining me. I need him so fucking bad, I’ll shatter if he doesn’t take me.
He blows hot air up my stomach and along my cleavage.
Chills break out along my arms and my nipples perk, ready for him to take them in his mouth. For him to squeeze them, to bite them, to give me more than the mere tease.
“Dallas,” I pant, and reach to pull his shirt over his head. He’s still fully clothed and I’m not getting what I want with his girth locked within his jeans.
He allows me to pull his shirt off, but then he’s right back on me, touching my stomach, stroking my waist, hovering over my breast. The most he gives me is brief scratches from his facial hair.
“Oh God.” It’s rough along my skin, but it feels so damn good. I grab the back of his head and pull him to me. This slow teasing stuff was fun for a while, but I need more. Now.
He latches onto my hard nipple and massages it with his tongue, between his teeth, and then he’s stroking his face along the outside of my nipple and down my breast. “Dallas.” He’s torturing me. “Please.”
Wicked Thing Page 9
