by Rie Warren
Jesus, and I think my days are busy? “Yeah, yeah.” I dove farther under the blankets until I was in a tight cocoon and his voice sounded muffled by cotton.
“Lunch . . . 1:30 . . . text . . .”
“Fuck off already,” I grumbled.
“Love you too, darlin’.”
I reached out a hand and swatted his ass. “Get lost, shithead.”
When I finally heard the door close, I yanked the covers off and thought about jerking off too. But would that count as cheating on Nicky? I tugged at my hair, glaring at the morning wood pushing up the waistband of my briefs. I decided to snag a couple more hours of shuteye. I could be faithful to my man for at least one day, right?
Roused by my alarm at eight o’clock, I stood and stretched then dropped for five reps of good old-fashioned sit-ups followed by four sets of one-armed push-ups. After I finished, I kicked off my briefs and considered leaving them under Nicky’s pillow just for shits and giggles. Strolling into the bathroom, I scowled at my rejuvenated erection. Cold shower? Screw that. If I had to fuck my fist to make the bastard go down, I’d do it.
One palm on the wall, my head bent under the hot spray, I wrapped a hand around my cock. I was so hard and sensitive the first few strokes hurt like a bitch, but the water and a few squirts of shower gel took care of the shock of touch. Pumping in and out of my fist, I braced my legs wide and groaned. It sure as hell wasn’t Nicky that came out of my mouth.
I ran the flat of my palm over the swollen head, closing my eyes as I imagined Leelee’s mouth sucking slowly over my cock until she couldn’t swallow any more. Muscles from my chest to my thighs to my ass shook. My forehead fell against the shower wall. I dragged my fingertips up, coasting them across the crown, lightly fingering just beneath until my thighs quivered. I’d never wanted a woman more than I did Leelee at that moment. Naked, wet, glistening. Nice tits, big hips, soft ass. Hungry and begging for my cock.
I knocked my fist against the tiles. Throwing my head back, I chased after the come filling up my balls until they felt like they’d burst and blow the top off my dick too.
I heard another knock, and that time it wasn’t me.
Then another as I stroked faster, swearing, so close . . . Jesus fuckin’ . . . “Aahhhlmost!”
Then full-on banging. At the door.
I pulled my hands off myself and flipped my head up with a loud, “Fuck. I’m comin’!” Or I would’ve been. I nearly was.
“Maid service better not expect a tip at the end of the week.” I cut off the water. I tied a towel around my hips. I swore some more. “Knock knock knock, my cock was about to go off.” I flung open the door and almost dropped the towel.
“Hi, Stone. Nicky was worried about leavin’ you to your own devices. He thought you might be lonely.” Leelee’s pretty eyes wavered for a second, lowering to my chest where drops of water clung.
Nicky was a dipshit and a dipstick for sending her to check on me. As for lonely? I was horny. I was the very last thing from lonely especially with the walking, talking, blushing visual of Leelee right in front of me and my cock ready to explode. She was soft to look at, but I reckoned there was hot fire just beneath the surface. Once unlocked, she’d be a wildcat the likes I’d never tangled with. She could easily win my heart, cut it out, crush it beneath her unreal high heels, and be on her merry way.
She stood in my doorway. With a bed behind us and my gay-mance cockblocking cover story between us. I tried not to crowd against her when all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and kiss her for all she was worth.
That was when I noticed her outfit.
Leelee. Holy. Jesus. Christ.
“What the hell are you wearin’?” I asked before my mouth caught up with my brain.
“Oh! I don’t usually dress like this. It’s for the convention.” She smoothed one hand along her hip and angled an ankle behind her.
She continued talking, but I was done listening because every ounce of my attention was aimed at the disarming display—disarming display? I need to stop readin’ Nicky’s shit—of hotness in front of me. This dress was going into the Handjob Hall of Fame. V-neck, off the shoulder, rose-colored. Leelee’s hair was twisty and perfect for grabbing while I rode her hard from behind. And the shoes on her feet should be outlawed in all fifty states for being unlawful very-fucking-hot violations. They were spiky and showed sexy toe cleavage.
I brushed up on this Queer Eye shit, fat lotta good it did me.
“Besides, what are you wearin’?” I watched her cherry-red lips move, thinking I better act like I had half a brain in my head rather than a full quart of come ready to rocket from my other head.
“A towel?” A hard-on and a smirk. No hat. Stone. Rock hard stone.
Leelee took in the ink on my chest. “This is gorgeous, the rendering’s exquisite.” Her fingertips brushed against my tat and the heart—my heart—pounded double-time. It felt like she’d taken jumper cables to my nervous system.
I was supposed to be unavailable, and I most definitely shouldn’t be alone with Leelee. So of course I did the stupid thing. Stepping back, I invited her inside.
“I brought you coffee, black.” She thrust a cup in my hand. “You don’t seem like the type of man who takes sweetener.”
If only she knew how much I liked sweet things like her. “Thank you, Leelee.”
“Um, I’ll just wait and you can finish what you were . . .” She trailed off, her gaze skimming down my body. My towel was quickly becoming the most unseemly mode of dress as it reached the danger zone of my pelvic V cut. She swallowed and looked away. “ . . . doing in the shower?”
Yeah, I didn’t think I was gonna whack-it with her present. What I’d been doing in the shower was her. And if I kept at it, I was gonna be real goddamn loud, especially with the living masturbation-material sitting in the next room.
Returning to the bathroom, I gulped down the coffee and slammed the cup into the trashcan. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the base of my cock, squeezing hard. My eyes teared up, but I managed to go from full to semi, at least until I got dressed and walked out of the bathroom and decided a hard cup jockstrap might be in order whenever I was near Leelee.
We made it to the lobby to hang with Jacqueline without any further suggestive comments. I averted my eyes from Leelee’s legs, her breasts, her dress, and most definitely her stilettos. Jacqueline waved at us from a clutch of couches at the far end of the room. I almost ran to her. I needed a goddamn safety net or back-up plan, anything but a wingman, if I was going to make it out of this conference without dragging Leelee to a bed—any bed would do, hell, the elevator was beginning to look mighty tempting—and keeping my ruse intact.
The overlarge room held a party atmosphere like Mardi Gras—or Savannah on St. Patty’s day. People greeted each other with air-kisses and almost-hugs, wearing the lanyards that listed them as writer/aspiring/agent/editor/gawker. And then there were the Coverdales Nicky had mentioned. They were unmistakable as they strutted around looking big and beefy and romance-cover worthy. Now I got it. These dudes were a cross between Chippendales, cover models, and, holy shit, Clydesdales, because some of them were as big as horses.
The lobby definitely wasn’t Stone’s staff room.
But there were pastries.
I loaded a plate. Leelee served herself beside me, and I saw her to a seat before I pulled up a chair next to her and across from Jacqueline.
Jackée’s fingernails were long, sharp and sparkly. Peering closer, I saw they were decorated with tiny book covers. Inventive marketing—writers had it going on. She tapped them like knifepoints on the table, a wicked glint in her shrewd brown eyes. “Damn. How is it you look hotter this morning than you did last night, Stone?”
I ripped into a gooey pastry, chewing instead of answering.
Her nails struck the table in a faster rhythm. “Was it something Nicky did to you last night? Did he pounce on you as soon as you walked through the door? I always figured him for a freak
in the bed.”
I swear, my nuts got smaller and smaller, shrinking from her unveiled interest. It didn’t help any that Leelee barely managed to muffle a laugh behind an éclair.
Finally Jacqueline sat back and crossed her arms. “What good are you? I’m just looking for a little sinspiration for my love scenes.”
Right, the gay male writer.
“’Fraid to say, I don’t kiss and tell.”
“I wasn’t talking about kissing,” she replied glumly. “All right, keep your secrets for now. But don’t think I’m letting you off the hook, Stone. I will get it out of you if I have to get Missy to beat it out of your beefcake ass.”
Fuck, I hope not.
With renewed spirit, she turned to Leelee. “So, what’s your story, girl? You ain’t never said so much as boo in our Facebook group.”
“Who says I have a story?”
“You’re a writer, you’ve got a story . . .”
Touché.
“There’s no one. Just my folks, my friends, and my writing.” Tight face, tight-lipped, Leelee obviously didn’t want to spill.
Jacqueline kept at it like Viper, the princess Rottweiler with a rawhide chew toy—or my boots. “C’mon now, give me something. I swear, if it wasn’t for the fact Stone likes the man-love, the pair of you would be two mute peas in a pod, and all this girl wants is a little story. Took us two years to get Nicky to even breathe a word about this one over here.” She pointed those claws at me. “Are you really gonna make me wait that long?”
Leelee slapped the half-eaten éclair onto her plate and muttered a quiet dammit. “Fine. I’ll tell y’all.”
I felt bad about her being in the line of fire because I hadn’t made up some lusty tale about Nicky and me. “Leelee, I don’t think you need to—”
She held a hand up in front of my face. “You don’t need to stand up for me. Remember, you’re no one’s knight in shinin’ armor.”
I opened my mouth to apologize for being a complete asshole, but Jacqueline beat me to the punch, hooting, “Told!”
“And you can shove it too, Jacqueline. I’ll tell it ’cause I need to get it off my chest, but don’t think I can’t see right through you. You want the lowdown on the new girl, to see if I stand up to inspection with all y’all veterans. I swear. Goddamn writers, sometimes it’s like a hazing ritual.”
Listening to Leelee put the beat-down on Jacqueline was some seriously hot shit.
An approving smile curved Jacqueline’s glossy painted lips. “I’m happy to see you show some balls, Leelee.”
“Oh, I got balls, balls of goddamn steel.”
So do I after that display of utter fucking brass.
“That’s what I thought, girl.”
Leelee sat back and glanced at me. “It ain’t gonna be pretty.”
“Mm hmm, the real stories never are. And that’s why we keep at the romance writing.” Jacqueline gave a little gospel.
I wasn’t all that fond of chick-talk. The most I came close to it was when I caught the boys snorting in the staff room over that Real Housewives train wreck or when they showed up at Ma’s with their women for the monthly Stone’s potluck. But I was all for learning more about Leelee, so I put my listening ears on. Just like Ma always told me to do when she used to give me the what-for.
“I was real serious about this guy, Patrick Waddell.”
I instantly hated the schmuck because she said this guy and serious in the same sentence.
“I thought he was just the most wonderful man there ever was. Successful, smart, sweet as could be. Sweet on me, at least I thought he was.” She twirled one long curl around her finger then snapped up in her seat, pressing her hands together in her lap. “Good lookin’, a real sharp dresser. A total scammer, it turned out.”
“Oh Lord,” Jacqueline breathed out.
“You see where this is going?” Leelee’s head dipped toward the other woman, who nodded in response.
Color me goddamn stupid because I have no clue at all.
“We were engaged, the wedding date was set. One Saturday we were picking out china at one of those precious little boutiques. And Patrick just started layin’ into me, right there in the middle of the store. He didn’t like the colors, didn’t approve of the patterns I’d pre-chosen, wanted to get right back into the car and go home. It was just china! It turned out it wasn’t the patterns he was worried about at all. The man helping us out, he stepped off a bit while Patrick blew up in my face. But I saw him watchin’ us, his lips pursed like he was suckin’ on a sour lemon.”
Jacqueline reached across the table to lay her hand on Leelee’s shoulder. “Oh, girl, he wasn’t, was he?”
“Yeah, yeah, he was.” Leelee’s head bent low as she sighed.
I was crawling out of my skin. He wasn’t, he was what? The Y chromosome plus a boatload of testosterone meant I missed out on a whole lot of feminine intuition, apparently.
Guarded eyes flew to mine and away. “Patrick said ‘I can’t do china, I can’t do a wedding with you, I can’t do you anymore!’ He shouted at me, but he looked at the other man, the very gorgeous man who’d messed up our order and dropped a few plates and muttered some cutting comments all the while he’d attended to us. And I was just naïve enough to ask Patrick what he was talkin’ about.”
“The kiss of death,” Jacqueline said.
Leelee mumbled, “The kiss of death.”
The kiss of huh?
“My fiancé left me for the clerk while we shopped wedding china in his store. He came out by accident, practically on the eve of our wedding, because he’d been two-timing me with that man!”
Wait, what?
“Now that right there is a second chance love story.” Jacqueline tapped those fucking outrageous fingernails again.
“Oh, trust me, there’s no second chance for Patrick or any man. The wedding invitations were followed by regrets and a cancellation notice.” She flicked her fingers at the éclair in front of her. “My life is worse than a romance novel.”
“That definitely counts for a black moment, baby-doll.” Jacqueline clucked her tongue. She stared at me over Leelee’s bowed head as if I had the feel-better answers to something I’d barely understood.
I held my hands up in an I-got-nothin’ move.
“’Course, as the fates would have it, this all went down last fall when every other huge thing was happening for me. My writing took off and my world fell apart at the same time.”
Jacqueline silently urged me to do something again, her hands spinning furiously in the air.
“I turned him gay,” came Leelee’s suddenly tiny voice. That cut me harder than any knife to the heart . . . or the other woman’s nails.
“Bullshit, Leelee. You can’t turn a straight guy gay, right, Stone?” Jacqueline glared at me for the third time.
Not unless it’s for the purposes of pulling the wool over y’all’s eyes. “’Course not, that’s fucking ridiculous.” I hooked my foot around the leg of Leelee’s chair and pulled her closer. Cupping her face, I did something immensely unadvisable and placed a light kiss on her cheek. Then the other one. Where I lingered much longer than I had any right to do.
From beneath long eyelashes, dewy eyes sought mine. Leelee’s lips quivered. Please don’t cry. I decided right then if I ever got the chance to meet Patrick the dick Waddell I was gonna beat his face all to bloody motherfucking hell.
Leelee pulled herself together and pulled away. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or regretful. Most of all I wanted her back in my arms.
“You must really hate people like me and Nicky,” I blurted.
Jacqueline snickered, “Oh, snap.”
“No!” Leelee patted my thigh, way up high. Danger zone, danger zone. My legs twitched, my cock throbbed, and I fought down the animal inside. “I feel safe with you, Stone.”
Bad move, babe. The side of me that wanted to protect her from pain warred with the part that wanted to prowl all over her body. Safe was
the very last thing she should feel around me.
Jacqueline’s chair screeching back hauled me away from the edge of proving just how dirty and dangerous I could be for Leelee.
Jacqueline stood to shout through megaphone hands, “It’s that famous writer, Nicky Love!”
Several heads from the surrounding tables swiveled to watch his approach. Next to him, Janice wasn’t to be outdone. She pointed and waved. “I don’t believe it! The most prestigious male-male author, Jacqueline!”
“What’re they doing?” I mumbled to Leelee.
“No idea.”
Having caused a stir, Jacqueline returned to her seat with a pleased hum. “Oh, we just like to get a little attention.”
“Or annoy people?” I asked.
“That too.” She grinned.
I stood as Janice, Missy Beat-me, and Nicky approached. Leaning in to nuzzle his neck, I wrinkled my nose where no one could see. “Interesting way to make an entrance.”
“You like that?”
“I had no idea you were such a showman, might have to get you around the gara—I mean around the dealership more often, babe.” I slid my fingers through his hair, working the enamored lover angle to the max.
He spoke just loud enough for those around us to hear. “I’m pretty sure you know exactly how much of a showman I am from bein’ in my bed every night, lover.” Dressed in pinstriped tuxedo pants, a ragged maroon T-shirt and black suspenders, he lowered his voice. “From skirt-chasin’ rogue to queer and en vogue overnight, Josh? I’m impressed.”
“Just makin’ sure we look good and spending some time with the ladies.”
“It’s that last part I’m worried about,” he hissed.
Me too. I was enjoying the ladies’ company—one in particular—a little too much.
Janice shoved Nicky out of the way. I did a double take. Gone was the hippy peasant look. She was dressed in some kind of kinky Old West saloon-madam get-up complete with a tight corset she almost busted out of. I guessed Nicky wasn’t the only one who dressed the part. She reached up to grab my face for a smack on the lips.
