“That’s it. You’re moving in with me,” he said as he quickly untied her hands, cleaned his semen off her and tossed her the panties he found under the bed.
“Is that an order?” She looked back over her shoulder at him. She was naked from the waist down and her pussy was dripping with his come. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life. Therefore he answered her in the only way his heart and cock would allow him to answer that question.
“Yes. That’s an order.”
“And I have to obey it?’
“Absolutely. You have no choice.”
She pulled her underwear on, dragged on her jeans with a little hop step and ran her hands through her hair.
“No,” she said, and walked out of the bedroom to deal with Mrs. Scheinberg.
“Okay, take your time. Think it over.”
Ian rolled onto his side and came face-to-face with Bob Ross and his big green eyes.
“Hey,” Ian said. “What’s up?’
Bob Ross turned onto his back, four paws dangling in the air.
“So...we should get to know each other. We’re going to be roommates someday.”
Bob Ross looked up sharply as if he’d heard a noise.
“Yeah, I know she said she’s not moving in with me, but she’ll change her mind, right?”
Bob Ross looked dubious. Then again, didn’t all cats always look a little dubious?
“Be straight with me, Bob Ross. You know her pretty well,” Ian said. “What do you think I should do to get her to agree to move in with me?”
Bob Ross turned onto his side and started licking his own crotch.
Ian nodded, impressed by the cat’s understanding of the situation.
“Good thinking.”
Flash came back into the room and stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Mrs. Scheinberg has a message for you,” Flash said.
“What’s the message?”
“She says, ‘Well done.’”
Ian crossed his legs at the ankles and threaded his fingers together behind his head.
“I aim to please.”
“She thought we were fucking, but she also sort of thought you were stabbing me to death.”
“Not my fault you’re a screamer.”
“If you hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have been screaming. Therefore it’s your fault.”
“No, it’s your fault for living here when you could live with me.”
“Ian.”
“I’m just saying you should move in with me.”
“I’m not opposed to it. I even like the idea. But.”
“But. I know, not until you sell a sculpture.”
“Right. And you need to accept that might take a while.”
“Or...you can move in with me right now and just pay your part of the rent in sex. Barter system, right?”
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re the one who tried to trade welding services for my body two weeks ago!”
“Oh, yeah, I did do that, didn’t I? But no, I’m not moving in with you until I sell a sculpture. Case closed.”
“Case open. I know how to convince you. Bob Ross told me how.”
She looked at Bob Ross and then back at him.
“And what, pray tell, is that?”
Ian grabbed her around the waist and threw her onto the bed. He wriggled her out of her jeans and underwear again and buried her head between her legs.
“Well,” she said with a happy sigh. “Bob Ross does have a point there.”
Ian opened her folds and licked her still-swollen clitoris. Bob Ross was curled up on Flash’s pillow and contentedly purring. Mrs. Scheinberg knew no one was getting murdered. Nothing was going to stop them now.
Flash’s phone beeped.
“Ignore it,” Ian said between licks.
“I’m ignoring it.”
The phone rang this time. Flash sat up. Ian groaned and rolled onto his back.
“Hold your tongue,” Flash said, picking up her phone off the side table. “It’ll just be a minute. It’s the gallery. Hey, Vaughn,” she said when she answered the phone. “What’s up?”
While Flash was on the phone Ian got into a staring contest with Bob Ross. He won but only because Bob Ross fell asleep halfway through the game. Whatever Flash was talking about with the gallery owner, it must be important. She pulled on her underwear and walked out of the bedroom, the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. The call went on long enough Ian started to worry. Finally Flash came back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed by her nightstand.
“What’s going on?” Ian asked as Flash carefully placed her phone back on the charger. She moved slowly, deliberately, as if she’d been stunned. “Bad news?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her eyes looked glazed.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, sitting up and taking her in his arms. She leaned against him, her forehead on his shoulder.
“My sculptures.”
“What? What happened? Was there a fire? A flood? What?”
“Vaughn, the owner, he says someone came in and really liked my stuff.”
“That’s good. Who?”
“He couldn’t tell me. Some rich art collector. But he loved everything I did. Especially my new piece. And then...”
Ian grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her in the face.
“And what?”
“He bought one. The one I did of your mother. He bought it—for twenty thousand dollars. Oh, my God... Ian.”
He took her face in his hands, kissed her and kissed her. She was crying so hard with happiness she could barely kiss him back. His heart nearly burst with love and pride. This woman, this incredible woman with dozens of burn scars and old cuts all over her body from spending the last ten years of her life devoting her every single free hour to learning to weld and sculpt and create flower gardens of iron and copper and steel. Had any woman ever deserved success more than this one?
“You’re amazing,” he said. “I knew someone would see how good you were. I knew it. We have to celebrate. We have to celebrate like crazy. We need to call, like, everybody. You probably want to call your mom. And Mrs. Scheinberg. Bob Ross, are you freaking out, too?”
Bob Ross released a little wheezing cat snore. Flash laughed so hard she snorted again.
“Okay, forget Bob Ross. He’s a cat,” Ian said. “What does he know about art? No offense,” he said to Bob Ross, who was looking very offended at the moment. “Are you freaking out? I’m freaking out.”
“I’m freaking out.” She put her hands on her head and spiked her sweaty hair straight up.
“You look like you’ve been electrocuted.” Ian spiked his hair up in solidarity.
“I feel like it.”
He pulled her to him in a hug and rocked her while she cried in her happiness. He kissed her head, her neck, her cheek.
“You know what this means, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, it means you’re buying dinner. And it means you’re the real deal. I already knew that but I’m glad everyone else will know it now, too.”
“Well, all that. But this means I can move in with you,” she said. She wore the biggest smile he’d ever seen in his life. He was blinded by the joy and yet he couldn’t look away from it.
“Yeah, if you want. I mean, I want. I really want. But I won’t make you just because you sold a sculpture. I only want you to move in with me if you want to.”
“I want to.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m absolutely sure,” she said. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.”
Flash kissed him again and Ian pushed her onto her back, deepening the kiss until they were both red-cheeked, breathless, wild.
“We have to celebrate,” he said. “We have to.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I’m going to do what I was doing before we were rudely inter
rupted by all of your dreams coming true.” Ian pushed her legs wide. “I’m going to eat your pussy.”
Bob Ross sat up like a shot and ran straight out of the room.
Ian called out after the terrified cat, “The other pussy!”
11
FLASH DRESSED FOR the Asher Christmas party and, at Mrs. Scheinberg’s request, let her neighbor do both her hair and her makeup.
“Easy on the lipstick,” Flash said as Mrs. Scheinberg applied the lip liner. “I usually don’t wear much.”
“You will tonight. Bright red. You’ll look glamorous. Even better, you’ll look like Christmas.”
“You don’t even celebrate Christmas,” Flash reminded her.
“Ah, but I do celebrate glamour. There. All done. Go look at yourself.”
Flash walked to the mirror on the back of Mrs. Scheinberg’s door and nodded her approval. She felt like Holly Golightly in Mrs. Scheinberg’s sleek red dress with the fitted square neck and her black elbow gloves and high heels.
“Wow. I do look glamorous. I don’t look like me, but I look good.”
“You look beautiful. Just like you. Do you like your hair?”
Mrs. Scheinberg had curled it with a fat curling iron, and after adding a little hair gel, Flash had a head full of sleek and elegant waves.
“It’s perfect. Thank you for everything,” Flash said, and left a bright red kiss on Mrs. Scheinberg’s cheek.
“My pleasure. Now you need to go. You’ll be late.”
“I’m going. I’ll have the dress back to you by tomorrow night,” Flash said.
But Mrs. Scheinberg only smiled.
“No rush. Kiss that handsome man of yours for me when you see him.”
Flash grinned. She’d been doing that a lot lately.
“My pleasure.”
She headed for the door.
“Veronica, dear?”
“Yes?” Flash turned around.
“A little birdie told me that Mr. Ian Asher has a big present he’s giving you tonight.”
“Is he?” Flash said, smiling again. “That devil. It’s not even Christmas yet.”
“He is. I want you to know that you should accept this gift even if you don’t want to at first.”
“You’re being strange.”
“I know,” Mrs. Scheinberg whispered. “But I’m eighty-eight so I get to use that as my excuse. Now go. Have fun. Be safe.”
Flash had no idea what big gift Ian was giving her tonight. The mystery occupied her mind the entire ride to the Mount Tabor neighborhood of Portland. Ian had warned her a week ago that he would have to meet her at the party. His father would need him to help organize the staff and that was Ian’s job every year. Flash didn’t mind. It would give her a second chance to make her grand entrance and blow Ian’s mind. He’d never seen her in a dress before, not even a skirt. All she wanted to do was put a huge smile on his too-handsome face, kiss him, drink wine together and celebrate their first Christmas together. The first of many, she hoped.
And tomorrow, she’d put in her thirty days’ notice on her apartment and start moving her stuff into Ian’s house.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed when she pulled up to Ian’s father’s house. She knew it would be a nice house. Dean Asher was a millionaire, after all, but she hadn’t expected this place—a sprawling white Victorian mansion that consumed the large corner lot it had been built upon. White Christmas lights edged the roof, the porch and the balcony, and their yellow glow made the whole house look as if it had been trimmed in gold leaf. Every door wore a green-and-red wreath and every window held a flickering yellow candle. And through the front bay window Flash spied a Christmas tree that must have been twelve feet tall from the looks of it. And Ian wondered why sometimes she worried he was out of her league...
Then again, maybe there were some perks to dating a rich guy’s son. This was a nice fucking house. Spending Christmases here would not be a chore. When she imagined herself growing up in a house like this, she couldn’t imagine she would have turned out as well as Ian did. Ian was down to earth, normal, grounded. He didn’t throw his money around. He could have lived in a house like this in a wealthy neighborhood and he didn’t. He could have driven a Porsche but instead he drove a Subaru like everyone else in Oregon. And he could have fallen in love with someone with money or connections. Instead he’d fallen in love with her. If he wasn’t going to punish her for being working class, she wasn’t going to punish him for belonging to the one percent as long as he didn’t lord his father’s money over her. And so far he hadn’t. So far he’d been the perfect boyfriend. Although he had apparently gotten her a big Christmas gift. That made her a little uncomfortable. She hoped it wasn’t expensive whatever it was.
Flash tried not to think about it. She was nervous enough as it was, coming to this important Asher family party. Ian said all his dad’s family would be there—aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and grandparents. She’d find one of the out-of-town cousins to talk to, preferably one who felt as out of place as she did. They could hide in the corner somewhere, sip wine and ignore the rest of the party.
As she pulled in front of the house she saw that Ian’s father had hired valets to park the guests’ cars. Valets? For a private house party? Flash took a deep steadying breath. She could do this. She was an artist, after all. A real one now that her work had sold to an art collector. When people asked her what she did for a living she could say with all honesty, “I’m a professional artist.” She’d been waiting for years to be able to say those words. She told herself she didn’t care what Ian or anybody was giving her for Christmas this year. Some stranger out there with good taste and deep pockets had already made her biggest dream come true. What more could she ask for? Nothing.
She passed her keys to the teenage valet who declared, “Cool truck,” before hopping in and driving it away. She really hoped Dean Asher had hired those guys. If you wanted to make good money stealing cars, this crowd was the one to target. She walked through the front door of the house—no one stopped her—and found a glittering horde of people gathered in the downstairs rooms. She saw the mayor, the governor, a few cast members from that TV show that filmed in Portland every summer and drove Ian crazy by blocking traffic in front of his Pearl District apartment. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Some to the tens. Like that guy over there in the tuxedo and the white bow tie who could have been James Bond, as suave as he looked in that getup. She stared at him boldly, and he returned the stare before plucking a champagne flute off a passing tray and walking over to her where she stood under a large bough of mistletoe hanging from the ached doorway.
“Did it hurt?” he asked.
“Did what hurt?” she replied as she took the champagne from his hand.
“When you fell from heaven?”
“Ian—that was the most pathetic pickup line I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard a lot of them.”
“I’ll have you know that was a very good pickup line.”
“Was it?”
“You’re going to have sex with me later, right?” he asked.
“Well...yeah.”