by Roxie Noir
“I don’t care if you dump me in front of the cameras,” he murmurs. “As long as this is real.”
I just nod, breathless.
“It is,” I whisper.
He kisses me.
“Fuck all this,” he says, and kisses me. “Fuck tabloids, fuck record companies, fuck publicists.”
“Fuck reporters,” I add, and he laughs.
“Fuck Valerie’s suggestions of next steps and physical affection benchmarks,” he says, and we kiss again, deep and slow. I put one hand on his chest, the hard muscle rippling under his shirt, and I slide it down slowly, my entire body tingling until I stop right above his belt.
Gavin pulls away, kisses my jaw, bites my earlobe, and I gasp.
“You don’t have to stop,” he murmurs.
I know we’re in an alleyway. It’s public. There’s a dumpster twenty feet away and graffiti on the wall facing us, and I know better than to get any further than first base here. But my brain’s not really in control any more.
Gavin’s phone dings, and I can feel it buzz in his pocket. We both freeze.
“I think we’re late,” I whisper.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and glances at it.
“Nigel?” I ask.
“Just asking where I am,” he says. “I did tell him I was headed to the loo, which he’s figured out by now is rubbish.”
I pull out my phone as well. I turned the ringer off earlier today, but I’ve got a feeling I might have a few messages waiting.
There’s a wall of them. The latest one is from Valerie and says THE MEETING STARTED AT 5PM.
“Same idea,” I tell Gavin.
We’re both quiet for a moment, and we look around for a moment, from the dumpster to the graffiti to the swish of traffic out on the main street as we remember where we are. I lean against the wall, trying to collect myself, remember what I’m doing and why I’m here.
Gavin gives me a long look, from my toes up to my head. By the time his eyes meet mine I’ve forgotten why I’m here again.
“Fuck meetings,” he says, stepping forward and taking my hip in his hand.
I grab the front of his t-shirt and pull him toward me and then his mouth is on mine again, hot and hungry, need like I’ve never felt surging through my body.
Alleyway, I think again, but Gavin slides his fingers underneath my shirt, his callouses rough against my skin, and I forget about it. I do the same to him, his body warm and hard beneath me.
I feel like I’m careening down a hill with the brakes cut.
Slow down, my inner voice keeps telling me. You’ve only just kissed—
Gavin kisses my neck, just barely nipping at the skin, and I grunt. Then he grabs my ass and lifts me, pinning me against the concrete wall of the alley, and now my legs are wrapped around his hips, his erection pressing against me with pure, delicious need.
Slowing down isn’t gonna happen. My inner voice can take a hike.
Suddenly there’s a loud bang at one end of the alley, and I jerk my head back.
Still tangled together we turn our heads as one, mouths open in surprise.
There’s a truck coming toward us, and as it hits a pothole it lurches with another bang.
I freeze. Gavin slides his hands out from under my shirt, and the truck slows to a crawl. The driver’s side window lowers, and I pull myself off Gavin, standing on my own two feet again.
“You all right, Miss?” the driver calls out.
I can feel myself turn bright red, the color of a ripe tomato.
“Fine!” I call, smiling as big as I can and giving the thumbs up.
Gavin doesn’t turn around. It’s not like he needs more headlines.
“Just checking,” the driver calls. He revs the engine and turns into a loading dock, disappearing around a corner.
I think Gavin’s laughing.
“We should go somewhere else,” I whisper.
He turns and glances at the alley, thumb edging back under my shirt and stroking my skin, sparks skipping through my veins. There’s an open door into an empty hallway, leading to the basement of another tall building, and he looks at me and grins.
I meant my place or his, but the words dissolve before I can say them, along with my objections that it’s too fast, too soon.
I want this. Technically, we’ve been dating for weeks. It’s not as if I don’t know Gavin, and besides, I don’t care what kind of girl it makes me.
We make for the dark hallway, hand-in-hand, a thrill running through me.
23
Gavin
I have no idea where we are and I don’t care. It’s the industrial cinderblock corridor to some high-rise building, gray and fluorescent. I’ve got her hand tight in mine and we’re both laughing as we try every door on the hall.
A knob turns in Marisol’s hand.
“Here,” she whispers, and opens the door, looking back at me. I glance up and down the corridor but there’s no one there so I push her inside and close the door after myself.
It’s dark, lights blinking, the warm hum of electronics echoing off nearby walls. Marisol’s right in front of me and I pull her in, warm and soft and yielding as I press my mouth to hers again.
Our tongues entangle. She makes a soft noise, somewhere between a gasp and a moan, and it sends lightning down my spine.
“Shh,” I say, pulling away. “Don’t get us caught.”
I kiss her jaw, the spot under her ear, her neck. Her heartbeat races beneath my lips, her hands on my back, fingers digging into me as I move to her collarbone, then the space underneath it.
I can’t remember the last time everything was this clear and sharp, the last time every single one of my senses was so overwhelmed with desire, like fire burning underneath my skin.
For years, every time I’ve been with a girl I’ve been dulled, the edge taken off, desire foggy as if I was looking at it through wavy glass.
Not now. It’s as if I’ve grown extra nerves just so they can shiver as well, desire like a thousand pencil points against my skin, hard and real.
Whatever’s behind Marisol is only hip high, and I lift her onto it. She wraps her legs around me again and I pull her to me, the delicious friction so overwhelming that I can’t even kiss her for a moment, just press my face against her, hand in her hair, trying to gather myself.
“You okay?” she whispers. “We can stop if you’re not okay.”
I just laugh and bite her earlobe softly, listening to her tiny gasp.
“I’m far better than okay,” I say.
Her fingers curl into my shoulder as I speak, and I laugh.
“This do it for you?” I ask, letting my lips barely brush the shell of her ear. Her fingers curl into me again.
“Yes,” Marisol whispers.
“I do like how you say that word,” I murmur.
I slide one hand under her shirt, my heart racing.
“The way I say yes?” she asks, her voice low and musical.
I run one thumb along the very bottom of her bra, feeling the soft skin underneath, and she tightens her legs around me. I’m hard as iron and I know she can feel it as she rocks her hips against mine.
She runs her hand through my hair and puts her lips to my ear.
“Yes,” she whispers again.
That’s all it takes.
Whatever self-control I had snaps, and I kiss her hard and deep. Marisol arches her back into me as she reaches behind herself, and suddenly her bra is loose under her shirt and my hands are on her small, full breasts, her nipples hard between my fingers.
I pinch. She makes a noise into my mouth, her hands under my shirt, short nails on my back, tiny slivers of white-hot pleasure spiking into me, and I groan.
“Shh,” Marisol teases me.
She slides one finger underneath the waistband of my jeans and my cock twitches even harder, my balls tightening for an instant.
Jesus, what’s wrong with you? You’re acting like you’ve never been with a woman be
fore.
I run my thumbs over her nipples again, circling slowly, feeling the delicious way they pucker as Marisol presses herself into me, our mouths together. She pulls harder on the waistband of my jeans and then, so slowly it feels like torture, slides one hand down the length of my cock from tip to root.
I nearly lose my mind. I have to fight the sheer primal urge to tear our clothes off, push her back and bury myself hilt-deep inside her, right here in this storage closet.
I don’t. I just want to, desperately, as her hand closes around me in my jeans, and I hear myself growl. Marisol pulls back a fraction of an inch.
“Was that noise—”
“Good, yes,” I whisper and cover her mouth with mine again.
Her hand tightens. White heat slithers through my veins, and for the first time in at least ten years, I’m afraid I’m going to come in my pants.
And I’m not big on rules, but I’ve got at least one: ladies first.
I roll her nipples one last time, grab her hips, and pull her forward to the edge of the table. I unbutton her jeans. She bites my bottom lip between her teeth and I slide my hand beneath her knickers, over her mound, my fingers slipping between her folds.
Marisol’s wet as hell, her knickers soaked through, and she leans her face against mine and moans softly as I draw my fingers back and forth, between her lips and up to the nub of her clit. She wriggles off the table, her legs unwrapping from me as I lean her back, over the table.
I stroke her again, and she gasps raggedly so I keep going, circling my fingers around her clit, rubbing her harder and faster, too far gone to tease.
We kiss again, her hand wrapped around the back of my head, pulling me down as she takes my cock in her other hand. She unzips my jeans and before I know it she’s grasping my erection, fist around the base as she strokes me long and hard.
“Jesus,” I whisper, and her other hand closes around my hair, her body tense and tight, a wire ready to snap, her fist stroking my cock.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers. Her hand tightens in my hair, loosens, slides down to my neck.
As if I’d stop.
“Oh,” she says softly, and gasps, our foreheads together, eyes closed. Her nails dig into the back of my neck and she makes another noise, like she’s trying to swallow a moan.
She comes. Her whole body tightens at once, her hand on my neck, her grip on my cock. She sighs and gasps for breath, moaning in a whisper, her face against mine. I keep circling her clit with my fingers as her chest rises and falls against me, until her mouth finds mine again and she kisses me deeply, her mouth opening under mine.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I want to make her come a hundred more times, but now she’s stroking me harder, faster, her fist around my cock as needy and urgent as her mouth on mine.
Fuck, I can’t take this.
“Marisol,” I murmur, pulse racing, breath coming in hard gasps. “I’m gonna—”
She bites my lip and strokes me harder.
I explode.
I have hardly any warning, just barely covering my cock with my hand in time so I don’t come all over this supply closet. Marisol’s lips are on my neck. I have to force myself not to shout as I come so hard I feel like I’ve been hit by a train, my toes curling, every muscle in my body bunching and tensing again and again.
When it’s over, Marisol takes her hand from my cock. She kisses me again, slow and long, until finally we separate.
We look at each other in the dark, and I realize that neither of us planned this far.
“So...” she whispers.
“You haven’t got a tissue, have you?” I ask. “I could use one.”
“Shit,” she says, looking around.
Then she starts laughing.
“I didn’t quite... hold on,” she says, and slips away from me. I can hear her zip her pants and can just barely make out her outline in the dark.
I stand there, softening cock out, one hand full of jizz, hoping that she’s got a plan. I certainly haven’t. I haven’t got much of anything besides a lazy, satiated feeling and the desire to do this again as soon as possible.
“Here,” she says, her voice low. I reach out with my non-jizz hand and she presses a warm piece of fabric into it.
“It’s a sock, isn’t it?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” she says. She sounds apologetic, but I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.
I wipe my other hand. The sock’s not very absorbent, but it’s better than nothing.
“I feel like I’m thirteen,” I whisper.
“You did this when you were thirteen?”
I can hear the smile in her voice.
“I certainly thought about it,” I say, turning the sock inside out. My hand’s still sticky, but at least I’m no longer dripping. “The end result was the same.”
I tuck my cock into my pants and zip up. Marisol puts her shoe back on. Electronics hum around us as she stands and I skim her back, pulling her in for one more kiss with my non-sticky hand.
“We should go,” Marisol murmurs. “Now we’re really late to the meeting.”
The thought of going upstairs and talking to Nigel and Valerie, having them pick Marisol and I apart like we’re characters in their story, actually makes my stomach turn.
“There is nothing I want to do less,” I say. “Let’s not.”
“We said we’d be there.”
“I don’t think I can stand it,” I say slowly. “I can’t sit there while they discuss what angle we ought to be kissing at or whether we should hold hands or what physical affections markers will be most palatable and convincing to the American public.”
She hesitates.
“Run away with me,” I say.
“I can’t just leave,” she says. “I’m supposed to be—”
“We’ve just broken into a closet in an unknown building and rounded third base,” I tease. “Don’t start being the good girl now.”
Marisol sighs.
“A proper date,” I say. “No fucking cameras, no tabloids, no reporters, no trying to convince onlookers that this is real, no one watching or listening. Just us, together, on a date.”
There’s a short silence, filled with the hum of machinery.
“Okay,” she finally says, and in the dark I can barely see her smile. “We’ll go on a date.”
24
Marisol
Miraculously, the hallway is still empty. I can hear a door open and then shut behind us as we walk out, Gavin gingerly holding my sock in one hand, and my blood pressure spikes at the thought of being caught.
But nothing happens. We leave the building, cross the alley, throw away the sock, find an entrance to the parking garage, and get into Gavin’s car.
I check my phone. There’s a solid wall of texts, emails, missed calls, and voicemails, and my stomach plummets. I hate not following through on things I said I’d do, even for good reasons.
Good reasons like Gavin’s mouth on mine, hot and hungry. Good reasons like hand jobs in a closet and coming so hard my face went numb.
I can’t believe I did that, I think, staring blindly at my phone. We could have gotten caught, we could have been arrested and then we’d both be felons as well as on the sex offender registry...
“How bad is it?” Gavin asks, pulling out of the parking space.
I swallow, focusing on my phone.
“Bad,” I say. “I’ve got sixteen missed calls from Valerie and ten from Nigel, plus a ton of text messages about how I need to come in for damage control, put out fires, reassure the American public, asking if I know where you are...”
I scroll.
“...asking if we’re together, saying that we can’t be seen together before we’ve got a strategy for re-gaining the media’s trust and goodwill...”
Gavin just laughs.
“Is that irony? Now we’re supposed to pretend to no longer be seeing each other?”
“It’s sort of ironic,” I say, distra
cted.
One minute ago, Valerie forwarded something that isn’t in all caps, and that’s weird for her. There’s no panicked commentary on this email at all, which makes me nervous, so I click the link.
Gavin’s Lady Love A Lie?
Drummer dishes dirt!
Shit.
I freeze. Gavin pulls out of the parking garage and then stops in the driveway, looking over at me.
Then he takes the phone from my hands.
“No, wait,” I protest.
He pops it into the cupholder on his side of the car.
“I promise it’ll all be there in the morning,” he says.
“Eddie told someone we were faking,” I blurt. “I think, I only read the headline that Valerie sent.”
“That fucking cock,” Gavin says, pulling his own phone out. I reach over him and grab mine, and for a few moments, we’re both just reading and scrolling.
After Gavin punched him, apparently Eddie got drunker, there were cameras, and long story short, he spilled the beans on us, trashing us to the paparazzi who were waiting outside the party.
I hold my breath. A car honks behind us and Gavin rolls down his window, waving them around.
“I don’t know that they believe him,” Gavin murmurs.
“I can’t tell either,” I say, scrolling back up. There’s a blurry picture of Eddie above the headline, his eye dark, though it’s hard to say whether it’s a bruise or a shadow. “The article at least sounds... skeptical.”
“He was quite drunk as well as angry with me,” Gavin says. “I wouldn’t believe what he said.”
“Even if it was true?”
There’s a quick pause as we look at each other, and then Gavin smiles slowly.
“Well, it’s not true any longer,” he says, and my heart does a little flip.
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs to bursting, then tilt my head against the headrest and exhale. The last twenty-four hours have been almost too much — the concert, the bad kiss, getting stoned, Gavin taking care of me, and now to have it suddenly become real, very real, bodily fluid real only for Eddie to tell everyone it’s fake?
