His eyes grew wide, but he said nothing as he brought his lips to hers, and she melted into him. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. She moved her hands to his neck and just gave in. His tongue was slow and sensuous. It seemed he felt the same way, and she was a little relieved about that. When they broke for air, he opened his eyes, touching his forehead to hers. “I don’t think I want to go out for those beers anymore.”
She smiled. “Why not?”
He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Something else came up.”
She started laughing from her belly. “I think it might be fun. Just you and me, a beer or two…”
He raised his eyebrows. “Then pick up where we left off?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “All right.” He kissed her again and then asked, “You wearing that?”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. Just asking.”
She glowered. “Get out of here. Give me a minute.”
“Seriously, you don’t have to change.”
“I know, but you’re right. I’m too dressed up compared to you.”
“You look great.”
“Get out of here. I’ll be out in a sec.”
He acted exasperated. “Fine.”
As soon as he left and closed her door, she took off her blouse. She didn’t want to look professional when her date was casual, so she dug through her drawers and threw on a Evans Blue t-shirt. She took her jeans off, followed by her damp panties, because she wanted to go without undies like Clay did and see what he thought of that. She slid the jeans back on and then put on a pair of sneakers. She checked herself in the mirror and spritzed a little perfume on her wrists before opening the door.
She walked through the living room to the entryway where Clay stood, swinging his keys in a circle on his index finger. He didn’t seem irritated that he’d had to wait, though. “Haven’t changed your mind, have you?” She grinned and shook her head, feeling giddy as she got closer to him. “You look great, by the way.”
She could hardly wait to see what he thought when he saw what she wasn’t wearing.
Chapter Twenty
CLAY WAS A lot of fun to hang with. They’d wound up only drinking one beer each while he told her about Last Five Seconds’ rise to fame. She grew to care about Clay even more, because he showed a little glimpse into himself. He was just a guy who wanted to have fun doing what he loved. He held no animosity toward anyone, had no hard feelings about anything; he just seemed to go with the flow, and he found ways to make that flow enjoyable.
If you had to be stuck in a waiting room, an elevator, or a ridiculously long line, he would be the perfect person to be with, because there was no way he’d let the moments grow dull. He had an enthusiasm for life that just couldn’t be extinguished. In that way, he was like a kid—every moment, every situation held some wonder, something fascinating, and Clay wanted to find out what that was. His mood was infectious.
Emily wondered why that didn’t seem like a good quality, like she didn’t expect him to be serious when the situation warranted it. Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him more sober. He was playful a lot of time, yes, but she’d seen him serious on occasion…like the first time he’d gotten close to her and asked her to think about giving herself to Jet.
So was that it? Was Jet the fun guy and Clay the more down-to-earth, practical man? He’d once said he and his onstage persona were both different sides of his personality, but when she’d hinted that maybe the real guy was more Clay, he’d grown quiet, not wanting to discuss it. And she’d respect that. She didn’t want to force him to talk about something he didn’t want to, but she thought maybe she’d hit on something when he’d grown quiet during her Jet/ Clay interrogation.
She was busy pondering that while listening to him when he said, “But enough about me already. Don’t you get tired of hearing me talk?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Nope.”
“Figures. What about you, Emily? What made you decide to go into Business?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I took a couple business classes in high school and liked them. Plus when I was really little, I helped my grandparents on their farm a couple of summers and hated it, and I also waited tables a couple years in high school. I decided I didn’t want a job that required me being in the hot sun or on my feet all damn day busting my butt scraping by on minimum wage.”
“But do you like Business?”
She glanced at the last inch of beer in her mug and stifled a sigh. “Not really. I mean I like things like writing letters, working on the computer—”
“Organizing shit.”
She laughed and nodded. “Organizing shit.”
He sat up a little. “Yeah, but I don’t see you as the business type. You dress it, yeah. But why don’t I see you checking out stocks all the time or reading Forbes or the Wall Street Journal?” Ooh. He was hitting close to home. She took a deep breath and swallowed what was left in the mug. “Do you have a favorite corporation? Any company you’re dying to work for?”
“No.”
“You just don’t seem the type. I know I haven’t known you for long, but it just doesn’t fit.”
Yep. He’d read her, all right. “Maybe not, but when you finally figure that out halfway into getting your Master’s in it, you’re kind of committed. I have a shitload of student loans, and working for a big corporation is probably the only way I’ll ever be able to pay them all off.”
“Life’s too short to do shit you hate, Emily. Money’s not everything.”
“So says the rich rock star.”
“I wasn’t always like this. You do what you gotta do. I had roommates and worked shitty jobs, and then when my wife started fucking around on me, I put all my energy into my band. I worked part time at a music—”
“You were married?”
“You didn’t know that?”
“Was I supposed to?”
He laughed. “Most groupies do.”
She forced the irritation down. “I might remind you: I’m not a groupie.”
He nodded. “Right. Well, then, you might as well know I also have a daughter.”
“By the wife?”
“Ex.”
She nodded. “Still, Clay, I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck. My dad did that my whole life after my mom died. I don’t want—I can’t—live that way.”
“So you’ll sell your soul to the man.”
Oh, he knew where to poke her, but she managed to stay cool. “Whatever it takes to take care of number one.”
He sat up and reached across the table to touch her hand. “Hey, I was just fuckin’ with ya. I don’t really think that.” She blinked twice and then looked at him and gave him a nod so he knew she understood. “I just…I know how you’re feeling. There’s that good old American dream carrot they dangle out there for us—you know, if you work hard enough for them, you can get rich too. But the problem there is that you can never have enough and you’ll never get rich being a slave. So I just decided fuck it. I was going to do what I loved, and as long as I could get by, I’d be happy. Seriously. So if that meant that I could never have a nice car or eat out a lot, I’d be satisfied anyway. I put my focus into my music and got a part-time job to pay some of the bills. The other shit, the stuff I didn’t care about? I didn’t waste my time on. That meant I saw my daughter when I could and paid as much child support as I could. Yeah, sometimes I got behind on it and other bills, but then I’d have a good gig where we’d sell extra merch or have a bigger crowd and I’d be able to catch up.”
“That’s great, Clay, but you didn’t start with a mountain of debt like I have.”
“How much you got? How bad can it be?”
“Let’s just say I could buy you a new Corvette, maybe two.”
“What? You fucking kidding me? That much? Why the hell would anyone pay that much to sit in school all day?”
She started laughing. �
��I like school. What’s sad is I did a work study two years as an undergrad and also got some grants. What I owe now is after all that. And my dad said he’d help me pay them off, but that just doesn’t seem right, you know?”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause he’s done so much for me already. And, like I said, I know he’s not rich by any means.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a high school math teacher. Not a job you’d get rich doing.”
“Does he love it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that he loves it. He doesn’t hate it.”
Clay started drumming the fingers of his right hand on the table. “What’s your passion, Emily?”
She started to answer, but then she knew she had no idea. None. So there was no answer there. She took in a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
He furrowed his brows. “Isn’t there something that grabs you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I loved going to school. That’s all I’ve ever done that I never hated.”
His expression softened. “What about working for me? Do you like that?”
She dug deep. So far, she enjoyed it. “Yeah, but…it just doesn’t feel like real work, you know?”
He laughed again. “What’s real work supposed to feel like? Something you hate? Something you dread doing?” She smiled. She could see his point. “That’s what I mean. Life’s too short for that fucking bullshit.” He was right—but there was the problem of the massive debt she’d racked up going to school. Still, she wasn’t going to argue with him. She couldn’t hide it,though. He could see it in her face. “What if I paid off your stupid loans? Then what? What would you do?”
“You can’t do that.”
“I could. That’s not the point, though. If you didn’t have that to worry about, what would you do?”
“I really hadn’t thought about it.”
“Then do it…and tell me if you could maybe see yourself working for me for as long as you wanted.”
She couldn’t figure out if he was teasing or not, but she was thought he was serious. He seemed sincere. And just in those few minutes, she’d learned that Clay was more than just a pretty face.
* * *
God…she’d never liked driving fast, but Clay could handle that goddamned Corvette like it was part of his body. The way that car moved on the freeway was sexy. And instead of being scared, the speed and feeling the way the tires hugged the road got her hotter than hell.
She felt herself growing warmer, in spite of the air conditioner in the car blowing full blast. His hand was on the gear shift even though he had shifted to top gear minutes earlier. She wrapped her left hand around his and lifted it, moving it over to her. He looked over at her and smiled, no doubt curious what she was going to do. The radio was turned loud, playing an Escape the Fate song, so she wouldn’t have heard him even if he’d said anything. She brought his hand to her left breast and sighed when he responded by massaging her.
Her hand was still on his, and she lifted it closer to her mouth. She licked his middle finger from base to tip, as though it were his cock, and then sucked the tip into her mouth. She glanced over at him and saw that he was tense, just like she wanted him. She sucked on his finger a few more seconds until she was sure he felt as hot as she did. She kept her eye on him while she did it and he looked over at her, his eyes dark with desire. It was twilight out, so she wasn’t so concerned that anyone could see their shenanigans inside his car, not that she cared at the moment anyway.
So she sucked his finger deeper into her mouth, then in and out in a rhythmic motion. He was definitely tensing up—she could tell by the way he was breathing—but she couldn’t hear him. She thought he said, “Fuck me,” but she couldn’t be sure. Oh, she planned to do that later.
He took over, sliding his finger out of her mouth. She still held his hand but let him move. He kept his middle finger pointed, dragging it down her shirt. When he got to her jeans, he managed to get them unbuttoned (how’d he do that so easily? It was like he’d done it one-handed before) and then pulled the zipper down.
At that point, she took her hands off his, and she tilted herself in the chair some, loosening the seatbelt, because if he’d gone to that much trouble, she wanted him to be able to get in there. Ohhhhh…she’d had her doubts, but he managed with little effort to get that finger down there. And without her panties on, he was touching her in just a few seconds.
God, yes, she was turned on, her own engine already racing in time to the car and the music. She gasped and drove her fingers into her hair, not knowing what else to do with them. She closed her eyes and focused on Clay’s finger, the motion of the car, and the intensity of the music.
After a minute of enjoying the pleasure he was bringing her, the rational part of her brain started to panic, wondering if he was endangering them. She bit her lip and looked over at him. His eyes were still on the road, although he looked over at her when he saw her move out of the corner of his eye. He was in between the lines of the lane the car was in. It seemed safe enough.
As if the universe wanted to help, the song on the radio changed and started playing In This Moment’s “Adrenalize,” and it just fed Emily’s frenzied feelings.
And then she noticed the quality of her breathing changing. She was close, already close, and she thought to herself that it was crazy. Still, she let herself focus on the pressure his finger was placing on her clit and took another deep breath. She slid her arms down the side of her face, down her neck and shoulders, and wrapped her hands around her breasts while she thought to herself, just a little more.
Then wham. She couldn’t hear her own cries over the song on the radio, could only hear the staccato beat of the guitar under the vocals, but she felt a glorious wave wash over her. In that moment, she felt so far away and as though nothing else mattered, nothing but that sweet feeling of release buzzing through every nerve.
How he could continue the motion and force of his finger against her while her legs clamped rhythmically, she’d never know, but he made her body’s narcotics rush to her brain and hit her over and over and over, until, at last, she collapsed in a heap, leaning back against the seat and letting out a long, heavy breath.
Chapter Twenty-one
GODDAMN, THAT GIRL was like putty in his hands. Clay whipped his sleek black car into the garage and turned off the lights and ignition. As the garage door dropped, he reached over and wrapped his hand around Emily’s neck, then leaned over and kissed her with as much restraint as he could muster.
She’d just caved around him on the freeway. He hadn’t expected that. He was simply trying to get her hot and excited for when they got back to the house, but she’d been so wet and the look on her face had told him everything he needed to know. It really hadn’t taken much effort to make her come.
It was gonna be tight, but fuck it. “Lean your seat back.” He already knew it wouldn’t go much farther, but it might just give him a little more wiggle room. He maneuvered his legs from under the steering wheel and over the gear shift so he was on her side and facing her. He balanced himself on a knee while mashing his lips into hers. He needed her now, especially knowing she was naked under those jeans.
Jesus Christ. He felt like a fucking teenager again. He could hardly think straight.
He knew he had at least one condom in his wallet. Since he and Abby had broken up, he’d gotten in the habit of ensuring it, because he never knew when the opportunity to experience a good fuck would present itself, and he didn’t want to miss a chance due to shitty preparation. He often had a condom and yet no dollar bills. He had his priorities straight.
He kissed down the side of her neck, and she turned her head so he had free reign. Yeah, she was ready again. God, he loved that about this girl. She acted like she could take anything he could give to her. She knew what he wanted. He knew, because he could feel her fingers on the waistband of his jeans, pulling them open.
He almost sighed alou
d when he felt her fingers wrap around his cock, squeezing lightly, rubbing him. God, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He felt for the wallet in his back pocket, because he was desperate. He couldn’t wait. He almost smiled, because the car had never been fucked in before. Emily had no idea.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slipped a condom on his dick so fast. He felt her underneath him pulling her jeans down. He wasn’t going to wait, and she didn’t seem to want him to, so he buried himself inside her, and she felt like heaven.
He was like an animal then, as though all sense had left his head. It was all gone, replaced by pure instinct. She was responding the same way, though, because the motion of her body matched his, blow for blow. She was like a boat on his ocean—he would wave and she’d just go with the flow as though she belonged there and only there. He kept it slow, even though his body urged him to speed up. He knew he’d come either way, but if he could prolong it, he knew it would be sweeter, and there would be a better chance of Emily having another orgasm.
And as if the thought were the catalyst, she began to moan again. It started as a groan in her throat, but in seconds, she opened her mouth to let it out, a cry to the world that Clay was making her feel like paradise. Fuckin’ A. She had no idea how sexy that was, hearing her wails of ecstasy, just like she’d done in that hotel…
And then he let go, a burst of pleasure that lasted only seconds but where time seemed to slow to nothing—there was no sound, no motion, no taste or smell, just pure, intense, bright, hardcore feeling, a raw down-to-the-bone sensation, followed by an emptiness that felt cleansing. He kept his eyes closed with his forehead pressed into the seat next to her head, and that’s when he became aware that it was goddamn hot in that car in the garage without the AC. But he still felt like a million bucks—or more.
Feverish (Bullet #3) Page 15
