Man cave, p.14
Man Cave, page 14
“Oh, wow. Um. Great.”
“So, yeah, I think that you’ll have to move out because we want to be on our own.”
I knew that was coming next, but wow. Her words weren’t cruel but fueled from a need to be alone with her new fiancé. The lease was in her name. I’d only taken over a sub-let and now renting a room to help her cover expenses until Mrs. Jonsdottir sold. I didn’t have a legal standing here, although I didn’t really want to linger living with her if they were going to be all hot and heavy all the time. Which they would be.
Mav and Bridge were. Gag. And I didn’t have to live with them.
Nate nuzzled her neck and Maggie giggled. His hand slid down her back and gave her ass a squeeze.
“Right, I’ll just be in my room.”
I scooted past them and into my bedroom, closed the door. Through the thin wood and walls, I couldn’t miss how they got right back at it. I heard her bedroom door close, thank God, so there’d be two doors between their sexy times and me.
I pulled out my cell, read through Cheryl’s texts which I’d ignored until now.
You didn’t pay the repair bill.
Mallory, answer me.
Don’t be rude to your mother. Pay the bill before the manager of the service center calls you.
Why are you so mean to me?
If I paid for the car repair, it would shut her up. Get her off my back. At least for a little while. And she’d stop saying I was mean. I sighed. I couldn’t win because I couldn’t pay the bill whether I was mean or not.
I hadn’t had much time to think about a lawyer for my court date next week. I could get a public defender, but did they even believe I was innocent? Would he or she care about my fate one way or the other?
I didn’t know lawyers in Las Vegas… but I knew two who might.
Maggie’s headboard started to slam against the wall, breaking me from my thoughts.
Wham. Wham. Wham.
That and now she was crying out–and not in pain–probably a lot like I had earlier.
I dropped my head in my hands and groaned. I couldn’t stay here, couldn’t listen to them hump like rabbits.
I grabbed a bag, stuffed clothes for work into it along with my makeup kit and a few other things, then went to the only place I could think of. It wasn’t Theo’s. He made it obvious that while I was the woman he wanted to sleep with, I wasn’t sleeping over. It wasn’t Arlo’s because I was too old for his couch and since he kept late hours with the bar, he’d wake me up, then I’d wake him up in the morning when I got up for school in turn. It sure as hell wasn’t my parents. Mav and Bridge also fucked like rabbits, so there was only one place left.
Lindy’s empty house. She’d moved to be with Dex in Denver, although she had no intention of selling the place. In fact, she and Dex had said they wanted to settle there after he retired in a few years.
For now, I was now a squatter.
34
THEO
* * *
Wednesday, we fucked. It pretty much went like this: I texted for her to be at my house again at six. She arrived, went to the couch, pulled down her jeans and panties to just below her ass, then bent over the armrest. I’d almost come in my pants, but barely held off until I got her to come twice, my dick buried nice and deep. Oh, and my thumb in her ass. Then we’d gotten delivery from the Thai restaurant Mallory recommended, then, before she could put her chopsticks down, I manhandled her onto the floor and ate her out until she came. Twice. Yeah, I was a fucking caveman with the best dessert ever. Only then did I flip her over, pull her up on her knees and pull her hair as I took her from behind again.
Thursday. Yeah, Thursday. Sex was… adventurous. Holy fucking hell.
It was snowing and the roads were shit. I said I’d pick her up. Not that she didn’t drive in snow all winter long and she’d already been out in it going to work, but still. She’d resisted, but I told her the only way she’d sit on my lap and ride my dick–a position we hadn’t done yet–was if I picked her up.
That was how I discovered she was staying at Lindy’s house.
I brushed the snow off my head and coat when she let me in the front door. “Why are you staying here?” I asked.
She quickly shut the door behind me, cutting off the cold air.
She had on a black skirt with a flannel shirt and must’ve ditched her boots by the door because she only had tights that covered her legs and feet.
“Because my roommate got engaged and her boyfriend–fiancé–moved in with her and they’re fucking like rabbits. I don’t want to hear it.”
I grinned, reached out and stroked her cheek. It clearly bothered her. I guess if I had a roommate ever, I’d be annoyed too. Probably jealous of them getting some and I wasn’t. “We fuck like rabbits,” I reminded.
“I thought rabbits had sex all the time. We only have it scheduled for six.”
“Do you want it at another time?” I asked. I’d schedule it for whenever she wanted.
She raised a brow as if the question was odd.
“While she didn’t kick me out on the street, I need to be out by the end of the month,” she continued. “The sex spurred me to relocate quickly.”
I looked around. Lindy’s house–Bridge’s too, technically, although she was permanently in Mav’s place–was homey and warm. Nothing like any house I’d ever lived in. My parents’ house had been a mansion. Massive. A showpiece. My apartment in Denver was where I slept and not much else since I’d pretty much lived at the hospital. Dex’s apartment had been the same way. He was rarely there, traveling for hockey for most of the year. But Lindy was putting her stamp on the place now that it was hers as well. Mav’s rental here was huge. And looked like a ski lodge. It wasn’t their permanent house. I figured they would build something once the James Inn was complete. Silas’ place wasn’t all that much different.
We never had a home like this one as an example. The furniture was a random mix of old stuff from her parents' time and new pieces they must’ve picked up over the years. The kitchen appeared to have some brand-new appliances, probably a result of the tree falling on the house over the summer. It was lived in and comfortable.
“Nice place,” I commented. “Cozy.”
Mallory looked around, smiled at the place fondly. As if it were a person and she had intense feelings for it. “I pretty much grew up here. Lindy’s pretty much my mom, but don’t tell her that because she’ll feel old. See that dent in the wall?”
I looked to where she pointed.
“I was mad when I didn’t get the role of Sandy in the school musical Grease and I kicked the wall.”
I knew the movie and imagined Mallory as Sandy. All sweet and innocent, but underneath, naughty as fuck. Yeah, that was her all right.
“Stay here then. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
She shook her head, moved into the family room. “No. It’s not mine. I’m okay crashing here, but I won’t take advantage.”
I frowned. “I’m sure Lindy and Bridget won’t think that way.”
“I’m getting a place of my own. The little house I told you about. It’s going to be mine.”
The gleam of determination in her eyes made me proud. It also made me want to see it happen. It sounded like she got the shaft from her mother–which I could relate–and needed a place to call her own. I wanted to help her. To make her life easier. To see her smile. There was something about Mallory I couldn’t get enough of, and it wasn’t just her pussy. Or her unbelievably talented mouth.
“I won’t have to worry about roommates,” she continued. “Or parents. Or listening to others having sex.”
I approached her then, cupped her jaw, then slid my hand around to tangle my fingers in her ponytail. Then tugged. “Speaking of sex, I want you to ride me.”
Her eyes widened and a flush swept prettily up her neck and cheeks. “Ride you?”
I nodded, took her hand and pulled her over to the couch. From my back pocket, I pulled out a condom I tucked in there before I left my place and dropped it onto one of the cushions. Then I went to work on the buttons of her shirt.
She licked her lips.
“That way you set the pace. And I can lick and suck on your pretty nipples.”
A slow smile crept across her face. One thing about Mallory, she wasn’t shy. When she liked something, she went for it. Like that blow job the other day. I’d been imagining her on my lap, cock buried deep all fucking day.
She reached for my jeans as I pushed her top off her shoulders. She let it fall to the floor as she got my zipper down, then jeans and boxers lowered. Barely. My dick sprang out as if eager and excited for her.
With a hand on my chest, she pushed and I dropped down on the couch. I couldn’t help but laugh, then it ended quickly when she gave me the naughtiest, sexiest looks. Like me and my dick were at her mercy.
She reached under her skirt, worked the tights and–hopefully–her panties down and off. When she stood and moved to climb on my lap, I stopped her.
“Wait. Lift your skirt.”
She frowned, not pleased to be stalled in her quest to ride my dick. But I needed to know she was ready. And I wanted a little show.
Grabbing the bottom of the flared material which fell to just above her knees, she raised it. Higher. Higher still until it was about her waist in the front and I could see her pussy.
“Wet?” I asked. “Need to make sure that pussy’s ready for me.”
She put her fingers between her thighs and swiped, and fuck me, raised her fingers to show me they were glistening. She was soaked.
“Get over here, woman,” I growled.
She took a step closer, and I was able to hook a hand around her waist and pull her down. Once she was settled with her knees on either side of my hips, she put her sticky fingers to my lips and I sucked them clean. Now her taste was on my tongue and I was addicted. To her, to the fact that she was right here with me. Eager. Ready.
I reached for the condom and had that fucker on in record time.
“Up,” I growled, and she went up on her knees. Grasping the base of my covered dick, I lined it up with her entrance. “Down.”
And that was the last of me being in control. Because Mallory rode my dick with a wild abandon that made me lose my fucking mind.
She was rocking and bucking like a cowgirl on the back of a mustang. Her cries of pleasure, my name and every swear word she didn’t want to say echoed off the family room walls. I wasn’t all that quiet either. I told her she was a good girl. That she rode me so well. That her pussy was made just for my dick and only my dick. I may have even said take it, take all of it.
Until the doorbell rang, and she froze with my dick buried deep.
Turning our heads, we looked out the front window. There, at the curb, was a police car, blue emergency lights spinning on top, an officer at the door.
So as for Thursday’s sex with Mallory? It was so good that the neighbor, Mr. VanMeyer, thought someone was being murdered.
Friday morning, I told Verna I was going to be a little late, went and bought Mallory a house and the old man next door some ear plugs.
35
MALLORY
* * *
“What do you mean you’re crashing at a Vegas call girl’s apartment?” Bridge asked. It was Saturday and I was at her and Mav’s place for lunch. She’d pulled me into one of the downstairs bathrooms when I told her my plans around Tuesday’s court appearance.
The guys–including Silas who’d flown up for the weekend–were out on the patio manning the grill. While it was a cold day–the snow had barely melted from the storm–Mav was cooking hamburgers. They’d shifted their dinner to lunchtime since I was working behind the bar for Arlo tonight. I’d made good tips the night before, enough to hopefully cover the lawyer’s fee.
Even though the guys were outside, she’d dragged me to the other end of the house. It was great she was ensuring my secret stayed just that, a secret, but I was more inclined to think she was afraid we’d be interrupted.
“I’m crashing at a Vegas call girl’s apartment,” I confirmed.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, and not just for the sleepover with my new hooker friends. The night before, the police had cut off the very loud, very amazing sex with Theo. When she’d dragged me in here, at first I thought it was because she’d heard about that. But no. It was about my arrest and ensuing court date.
I had no idea who I was any longer. It was sex, sex, sex. Having sex, having sex loud enough for the cops to be called, being arrested for selling my body for sex. Sex.
Sex with Theo though, gah. I melted for him. Craved him. Liked him.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?” she pushed.
“They’re my friends.” I thought of Annie and Trixie and how they’d kept me from freaking out being put in jail that night. It had been really flipping scary. Until they started chatting me up and gave me sexy times tips that had come in very handy.
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t be judgy.”
“I’m not judgy,” she countered, absently straightening a hand towel. The powder room was as posh as the rest of the house, with a frosted window to let in tons of light and a heated toilet seat. “They’re strangers.”
“They’re my friends,” I repeated. “You forget I can make friends anywhere.”
She huffed. “Like in lockup?”
“Exactly,” I countered, a little hurt. She made it sound like I was a serial offender, where I hung out on a Saturday night to catch up just for fun. “Both women are really nice. I needed to find a local lawyer to represent me and they’re the only people I know in the city to get a referral.”
“Did they find you one?”
I nodded, then smiled. “Yeah, and she–the lawyer–said she’d represent me. Cheap.”
Trixie had connected me with the woman, and we’d talked for a short time about my case. That it would be a quick ten minutes in court, and she was sure the charges would be dropped. She’d charge me only for the time before the judge, since she would already be at the courthouse for Trixie’s and Annie’s hearings.
Bridge eyed me warily. “Cheap like you’re going to end up doing hard time because she’s incompetent or cheap because she feels sorry for you?”
“Probably the latter.” I thought for a moment because she was making me doubt myself, and the lawyer. “Hopefully not the first.”
“Mal,” she sighed.
“If Annie and Trixie haven’t had any charges stick and they really are soliciting, then I feel confident she’ll get me off.” I did. I did. Aspen’s manifesting in action.
She was quiet for a moment. “What’s your plan then?”
“I’m driving down on Monday. Crash on Annie’s couch that night. My court appearance is at nine-thirty on Tuesday morning. Then I’ll drive back.”
I checked and the flight cost so much more than it would to drive.
“You can use Mav’s jet, I’m sure,” she offered, sounding like someone becoming used to the very good things in life. Most people offered a shop vac or a ladder, not an airplane.
I wasn’t looking forward to the thirteen hours on the highway… round trip, and I knew how nice the private jet was, but there was no way I could use it. I’d been ignoring Cheryl because I had no money to give her. I didn’t want to hear her mean words or excuses, so I just didn’t respond to her consistent texting and voicemails.
I wasn’t going to take advantage of Mav. Or any of the James brothers for their plane. I hadn’t earned it and while I was sleeping with Theo, it wasn’t a relationship. He’d made that clear with the whole cum, clean up, and clear out routine. We were nothing like Bridge and Mav.
“Not a chance.”
“I’ll go with you then,” she offered. “Road trip.”
I shook my head. “You have school.”
“So do you.”
“I took it off.”
“I’ll take it off.”
“You can’t explain a spontaneous Monday trip to Vegas with me to Mav. Especially when we’ll only be in town less than twelve hours. Not happening.”
“I’ll just tell him it’s a secret.”
I gave her a look. “Like that’s going to go over with him. He’ll get the truth out of you one or another.”
A flush spread up her cheeks. “Probably true.”
“I’ll be gone two days and it will be over.”
She sighed. Hard. “Fine. But if things go wrong and you need money, you will come to me.”
I nodded, but that wasn’t going to happen. I would not be like Cheryl. I got myself into this mess, I was going to get myself out of it.
36
THEO
* * *
Through the windows, I’d watched Mallory and Bridget disappear into the depths of the huge house, Scout eagerly following. To talk, I was sure. Women talked a fucking lot. While I stood outside with Mav and Silas staring at a hot grill, I was missing out on time with Mallory. As soon as I saw Bridget back in the kitchen pulling a bowl of potato salad from the fridge, I ditched my brothers, who were arguing over the differences between hickory, oak, and apple wood chips for smoking, and went inside. I didn’t cook, nor give a shit about the complex nuances of grilling meat.
I gave a shit about tracking down my woman.
Yeah, she was my woman.
Because when the police rang the doorbell Thursday night at Lindy’s house, when she was on my lap and getting her pleasure from my dick, hands and mouth, I’d gone possessive.
No one saw Mallory like I did. Her flared skirt had covered her lower half–and our laps, and her ass, and the fact that my dick was deep inside her. But one tit, glistening, the nipple red and hard from me sucking on it, had been out since I tugged down the cup of her bra.
“So, yeah, I think that you’ll have to move out because we want to be on our own.”
I knew that was coming next, but wow. Her words weren’t cruel but fueled from a need to be alone with her new fiancé. The lease was in her name. I’d only taken over a sub-let and now renting a room to help her cover expenses until Mrs. Jonsdottir sold. I didn’t have a legal standing here, although I didn’t really want to linger living with her if they were going to be all hot and heavy all the time. Which they would be.
Mav and Bridge were. Gag. And I didn’t have to live with them.
Nate nuzzled her neck and Maggie giggled. His hand slid down her back and gave her ass a squeeze.
“Right, I’ll just be in my room.”
I scooted past them and into my bedroom, closed the door. Through the thin wood and walls, I couldn’t miss how they got right back at it. I heard her bedroom door close, thank God, so there’d be two doors between their sexy times and me.
I pulled out my cell, read through Cheryl’s texts which I’d ignored until now.
You didn’t pay the repair bill.
Mallory, answer me.
Don’t be rude to your mother. Pay the bill before the manager of the service center calls you.
Why are you so mean to me?
If I paid for the car repair, it would shut her up. Get her off my back. At least for a little while. And she’d stop saying I was mean. I sighed. I couldn’t win because I couldn’t pay the bill whether I was mean or not.
I hadn’t had much time to think about a lawyer for my court date next week. I could get a public defender, but did they even believe I was innocent? Would he or she care about my fate one way or the other?
I didn’t know lawyers in Las Vegas… but I knew two who might.
Maggie’s headboard started to slam against the wall, breaking me from my thoughts.
Wham. Wham. Wham.
That and now she was crying out–and not in pain–probably a lot like I had earlier.
I dropped my head in my hands and groaned. I couldn’t stay here, couldn’t listen to them hump like rabbits.
I grabbed a bag, stuffed clothes for work into it along with my makeup kit and a few other things, then went to the only place I could think of. It wasn’t Theo’s. He made it obvious that while I was the woman he wanted to sleep with, I wasn’t sleeping over. It wasn’t Arlo’s because I was too old for his couch and since he kept late hours with the bar, he’d wake me up, then I’d wake him up in the morning when I got up for school in turn. It sure as hell wasn’t my parents. Mav and Bridge also fucked like rabbits, so there was only one place left.
Lindy’s empty house. She’d moved to be with Dex in Denver, although she had no intention of selling the place. In fact, she and Dex had said they wanted to settle there after he retired in a few years.
For now, I was now a squatter.
34
THEO
* * *
Wednesday, we fucked. It pretty much went like this: I texted for her to be at my house again at six. She arrived, went to the couch, pulled down her jeans and panties to just below her ass, then bent over the armrest. I’d almost come in my pants, but barely held off until I got her to come twice, my dick buried nice and deep. Oh, and my thumb in her ass. Then we’d gotten delivery from the Thai restaurant Mallory recommended, then, before she could put her chopsticks down, I manhandled her onto the floor and ate her out until she came. Twice. Yeah, I was a fucking caveman with the best dessert ever. Only then did I flip her over, pull her up on her knees and pull her hair as I took her from behind again.
Thursday. Yeah, Thursday. Sex was… adventurous. Holy fucking hell.
It was snowing and the roads were shit. I said I’d pick her up. Not that she didn’t drive in snow all winter long and she’d already been out in it going to work, but still. She’d resisted, but I told her the only way she’d sit on my lap and ride my dick–a position we hadn’t done yet–was if I picked her up.
That was how I discovered she was staying at Lindy’s house.
I brushed the snow off my head and coat when she let me in the front door. “Why are you staying here?” I asked.
She quickly shut the door behind me, cutting off the cold air.
She had on a black skirt with a flannel shirt and must’ve ditched her boots by the door because she only had tights that covered her legs and feet.
“Because my roommate got engaged and her boyfriend–fiancé–moved in with her and they’re fucking like rabbits. I don’t want to hear it.”
I grinned, reached out and stroked her cheek. It clearly bothered her. I guess if I had a roommate ever, I’d be annoyed too. Probably jealous of them getting some and I wasn’t. “We fuck like rabbits,” I reminded.
“I thought rabbits had sex all the time. We only have it scheduled for six.”
“Do you want it at another time?” I asked. I’d schedule it for whenever she wanted.
She raised a brow as if the question was odd.
“While she didn’t kick me out on the street, I need to be out by the end of the month,” she continued. “The sex spurred me to relocate quickly.”
I looked around. Lindy’s house–Bridge’s too, technically, although she was permanently in Mav’s place–was homey and warm. Nothing like any house I’d ever lived in. My parents’ house had been a mansion. Massive. A showpiece. My apartment in Denver was where I slept and not much else since I’d pretty much lived at the hospital. Dex’s apartment had been the same way. He was rarely there, traveling for hockey for most of the year. But Lindy was putting her stamp on the place now that it was hers as well. Mav’s rental here was huge. And looked like a ski lodge. It wasn’t their permanent house. I figured they would build something once the James Inn was complete. Silas’ place wasn’t all that much different.
We never had a home like this one as an example. The furniture was a random mix of old stuff from her parents' time and new pieces they must’ve picked up over the years. The kitchen appeared to have some brand-new appliances, probably a result of the tree falling on the house over the summer. It was lived in and comfortable.
“Nice place,” I commented. “Cozy.”
Mallory looked around, smiled at the place fondly. As if it were a person and she had intense feelings for it. “I pretty much grew up here. Lindy’s pretty much my mom, but don’t tell her that because she’ll feel old. See that dent in the wall?”
I looked to where she pointed.
“I was mad when I didn’t get the role of Sandy in the school musical Grease and I kicked the wall.”
I knew the movie and imagined Mallory as Sandy. All sweet and innocent, but underneath, naughty as fuck. Yeah, that was her all right.
“Stay here then. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
She shook her head, moved into the family room. “No. It’s not mine. I’m okay crashing here, but I won’t take advantage.”
I frowned. “I’m sure Lindy and Bridget won’t think that way.”
“I’m getting a place of my own. The little house I told you about. It’s going to be mine.”
The gleam of determination in her eyes made me proud. It also made me want to see it happen. It sounded like she got the shaft from her mother–which I could relate–and needed a place to call her own. I wanted to help her. To make her life easier. To see her smile. There was something about Mallory I couldn’t get enough of, and it wasn’t just her pussy. Or her unbelievably talented mouth.
“I won’t have to worry about roommates,” she continued. “Or parents. Or listening to others having sex.”
I approached her then, cupped her jaw, then slid my hand around to tangle my fingers in her ponytail. Then tugged. “Speaking of sex, I want you to ride me.”
Her eyes widened and a flush swept prettily up her neck and cheeks. “Ride you?”
I nodded, took her hand and pulled her over to the couch. From my back pocket, I pulled out a condom I tucked in there before I left my place and dropped it onto one of the cushions. Then I went to work on the buttons of her shirt.
She licked her lips.
“That way you set the pace. And I can lick and suck on your pretty nipples.”
A slow smile crept across her face. One thing about Mallory, she wasn’t shy. When she liked something, she went for it. Like that blow job the other day. I’d been imagining her on my lap, cock buried deep all fucking day.
She reached for my jeans as I pushed her top off her shoulders. She let it fall to the floor as she got my zipper down, then jeans and boxers lowered. Barely. My dick sprang out as if eager and excited for her.
With a hand on my chest, she pushed and I dropped down on the couch. I couldn’t help but laugh, then it ended quickly when she gave me the naughtiest, sexiest looks. Like me and my dick were at her mercy.
She reached under her skirt, worked the tights and–hopefully–her panties down and off. When she stood and moved to climb on my lap, I stopped her.
“Wait. Lift your skirt.”
She frowned, not pleased to be stalled in her quest to ride my dick. But I needed to know she was ready. And I wanted a little show.
Grabbing the bottom of the flared material which fell to just above her knees, she raised it. Higher. Higher still until it was about her waist in the front and I could see her pussy.
“Wet?” I asked. “Need to make sure that pussy’s ready for me.”
She put her fingers between her thighs and swiped, and fuck me, raised her fingers to show me they were glistening. She was soaked.
“Get over here, woman,” I growled.
She took a step closer, and I was able to hook a hand around her waist and pull her down. Once she was settled with her knees on either side of my hips, she put her sticky fingers to my lips and I sucked them clean. Now her taste was on my tongue and I was addicted. To her, to the fact that she was right here with me. Eager. Ready.
I reached for the condom and had that fucker on in record time.
“Up,” I growled, and she went up on her knees. Grasping the base of my covered dick, I lined it up with her entrance. “Down.”
And that was the last of me being in control. Because Mallory rode my dick with a wild abandon that made me lose my fucking mind.
She was rocking and bucking like a cowgirl on the back of a mustang. Her cries of pleasure, my name and every swear word she didn’t want to say echoed off the family room walls. I wasn’t all that quiet either. I told her she was a good girl. That she rode me so well. That her pussy was made just for my dick and only my dick. I may have even said take it, take all of it.
Until the doorbell rang, and she froze with my dick buried deep.
Turning our heads, we looked out the front window. There, at the curb, was a police car, blue emergency lights spinning on top, an officer at the door.
So as for Thursday’s sex with Mallory? It was so good that the neighbor, Mr. VanMeyer, thought someone was being murdered.
Friday morning, I told Verna I was going to be a little late, went and bought Mallory a house and the old man next door some ear plugs.
35
MALLORY
* * *
“What do you mean you’re crashing at a Vegas call girl’s apartment?” Bridge asked. It was Saturday and I was at her and Mav’s place for lunch. She’d pulled me into one of the downstairs bathrooms when I told her my plans around Tuesday’s court appearance.
The guys–including Silas who’d flown up for the weekend–were out on the patio manning the grill. While it was a cold day–the snow had barely melted from the storm–Mav was cooking hamburgers. They’d shifted their dinner to lunchtime since I was working behind the bar for Arlo tonight. I’d made good tips the night before, enough to hopefully cover the lawyer’s fee.
Even though the guys were outside, she’d dragged me to the other end of the house. It was great she was ensuring my secret stayed just that, a secret, but I was more inclined to think she was afraid we’d be interrupted.
“I’m crashing at a Vegas call girl’s apartment,” I confirmed.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, and not just for the sleepover with my new hooker friends. The night before, the police had cut off the very loud, very amazing sex with Theo. When she’d dragged me in here, at first I thought it was because she’d heard about that. But no. It was about my arrest and ensuing court date.
I had no idea who I was any longer. It was sex, sex, sex. Having sex, having sex loud enough for the cops to be called, being arrested for selling my body for sex. Sex.
Sex with Theo though, gah. I melted for him. Craved him. Liked him.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?” she pushed.
“They’re my friends.” I thought of Annie and Trixie and how they’d kept me from freaking out being put in jail that night. It had been really flipping scary. Until they started chatting me up and gave me sexy times tips that had come in very handy.
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t be judgy.”
“I’m not judgy,” she countered, absently straightening a hand towel. The powder room was as posh as the rest of the house, with a frosted window to let in tons of light and a heated toilet seat. “They’re strangers.”
“They’re my friends,” I repeated. “You forget I can make friends anywhere.”
She huffed. “Like in lockup?”
“Exactly,” I countered, a little hurt. She made it sound like I was a serial offender, where I hung out on a Saturday night to catch up just for fun. “Both women are really nice. I needed to find a local lawyer to represent me and they’re the only people I know in the city to get a referral.”
“Did they find you one?”
I nodded, then smiled. “Yeah, and she–the lawyer–said she’d represent me. Cheap.”
Trixie had connected me with the woman, and we’d talked for a short time about my case. That it would be a quick ten minutes in court, and she was sure the charges would be dropped. She’d charge me only for the time before the judge, since she would already be at the courthouse for Trixie’s and Annie’s hearings.
Bridge eyed me warily. “Cheap like you’re going to end up doing hard time because she’s incompetent or cheap because she feels sorry for you?”
“Probably the latter.” I thought for a moment because she was making me doubt myself, and the lawyer. “Hopefully not the first.”
“Mal,” she sighed.
“If Annie and Trixie haven’t had any charges stick and they really are soliciting, then I feel confident she’ll get me off.” I did. I did. Aspen’s manifesting in action.
She was quiet for a moment. “What’s your plan then?”
“I’m driving down on Monday. Crash on Annie’s couch that night. My court appearance is at nine-thirty on Tuesday morning. Then I’ll drive back.”
I checked and the flight cost so much more than it would to drive.
“You can use Mav’s jet, I’m sure,” she offered, sounding like someone becoming used to the very good things in life. Most people offered a shop vac or a ladder, not an airplane.
I wasn’t looking forward to the thirteen hours on the highway… round trip, and I knew how nice the private jet was, but there was no way I could use it. I’d been ignoring Cheryl because I had no money to give her. I didn’t want to hear her mean words or excuses, so I just didn’t respond to her consistent texting and voicemails.
I wasn’t going to take advantage of Mav. Or any of the James brothers for their plane. I hadn’t earned it and while I was sleeping with Theo, it wasn’t a relationship. He’d made that clear with the whole cum, clean up, and clear out routine. We were nothing like Bridge and Mav.
“Not a chance.”
“I’ll go with you then,” she offered. “Road trip.”
I shook my head. “You have school.”
“So do you.”
“I took it off.”
“I’ll take it off.”
“You can’t explain a spontaneous Monday trip to Vegas with me to Mav. Especially when we’ll only be in town less than twelve hours. Not happening.”
“I’ll just tell him it’s a secret.”
I gave her a look. “Like that’s going to go over with him. He’ll get the truth out of you one or another.”
A flush spread up her cheeks. “Probably true.”
“I’ll be gone two days and it will be over.”
She sighed. Hard. “Fine. But if things go wrong and you need money, you will come to me.”
I nodded, but that wasn’t going to happen. I would not be like Cheryl. I got myself into this mess, I was going to get myself out of it.
36
THEO
* * *
Through the windows, I’d watched Mallory and Bridget disappear into the depths of the huge house, Scout eagerly following. To talk, I was sure. Women talked a fucking lot. While I stood outside with Mav and Silas staring at a hot grill, I was missing out on time with Mallory. As soon as I saw Bridget back in the kitchen pulling a bowl of potato salad from the fridge, I ditched my brothers, who were arguing over the differences between hickory, oak, and apple wood chips for smoking, and went inside. I didn’t cook, nor give a shit about the complex nuances of grilling meat.
I gave a shit about tracking down my woman.
Yeah, she was my woman.
Because when the police rang the doorbell Thursday night at Lindy’s house, when she was on my lap and getting her pleasure from my dick, hands and mouth, I’d gone possessive.
No one saw Mallory like I did. Her flared skirt had covered her lower half–and our laps, and her ass, and the fact that my dick was deep inside her. But one tit, glistening, the nipple red and hard from me sucking on it, had been out since I tugged down the cup of her bra.
