She pulled away, moving towards the car.
I grabbed her hand, pulling her back to me. I was past caring about making a scene. I wanted the guy to see that I was more than just a friend to her.
I saw his chiseled jaw, with its five o’clock scruff, clench hard, his nostrils flaring, his face turning far to the left, away from the sight of us.
I could feel the hostility pouring off him. The rage.
This bothered him. Good.
I wanted to bother the fucker.
I wanted to hurt him, actually. And I certainly hoped he could feel the hostility, the unadulterated rage, that was pouring off me.
I looked away from him and down to a troubled Iris. I bent and took her mouth, lashing my tongue inside to stroke hers.
She pulled away, and my hands shot down to her hips, sliding around to cup her ass as I ground into her.
Her palms went to my chest, and she pushed away, though not hard, as though her heart wasn’t in it.
“Don’t, Dair. Please. Not now. I’ll call you later.”
I ignored that, kissing her again, my hand holding the back of her head, not letting her draw back until she began to respond, letting out a soft little grunt and starting to kiss me back.
I kissed along her jaw until my mouth was at her ear. “Don’t go with him. Please. Come with me.”
Lips trembling, body trembling, breasts shivering with her deep, unsteady breasts, she was putty in my hands. I could have taken her against that wall in broad daylight, asshole in the Jag watching on, the police officer somewhere close enough to arrest us, if I’d been so inclined.
I very nearly was.
I’d half-convinced myself I’d made up the way she responded to me, but here it was, the proof in my arms, un-fakeable to my adoring gaze.
I kissed her breathless, then breathed my own into her.
“Come with me,” I panted. It was a plea.
“I can’t. I’ll call you soon though, okay?”
“No. I don’t believe you.” My hands were at her back rubbing, rubbing, molding her hard against me.
“I’ll come see you as soon as I can. Tonight, if I can. I promise.”
“If you’re promising me things, promise me you won’t sleep with this guy, whoever the fuck he is.”
She stiffened, then drew in a deep, heavy breath. She put her lips to my ear, and said very, very softly. “I love you, and I’ll come see you. Later.”
That stunned me into letting her loose.
She moved away, and slid into the passenger seat of that fucker’s Jag before I could stop her.
I watched his big hand move to stroke over her hair as the car began to move.
She shot me one brief, worried glance, and then she was gone.
I was in a hell of a mood after that.
I tried to follow them, but that fucker lost me before I made it to my car and out of the parking lot.
I went for a drive, aimless really, no goal in mind, before going back home, to wait for a call that I was certain wasn’t coming.
I was pretty miserable.
In fact, I was sick with jealousy, obsessed with the familiar way that man’s hand had stroked over her hair.
Mine, I thought. How dare he touch what was mine?
And when had I started to think of that wild creature as mine?
And, strangely, the most unbearable thought of all, had she meant that I love you, or was she just finding new ways to toy with me?
I got in an amazing workout that day and still felt like shit.
She didn’t call.
She didn’t show up.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a liar, after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Turner Thorn wrote horror, twisted shit with lots of sex and gore, but no one could argue that it wasn’t well-written sex and gore. He was one of the best in his genre, only lived ten minutes away from me, and lately, he was shaping up to be one of my closest friends and confidantes.
Truth be told, I sort of used to think of him as an asshole.
He was crass, snarky, arrogant, chauvinistic, and completely obsessed with talking about sex, which back when I’d been married and rarely got laid, hadn’t been fun at all.
He had found some wacky balance where he called himself a social recluse, which meant he basically held court and frequent parties at his house, but he pretty much never went anywhere.
He also had a completely twisted sense of humor, that again, I hadn’t appreciated until I’d been unburdened of a spouse that found nothing funny, and frequently got pissy at me for laughing at the wrong things.
It hadn’t helped that Tammy had always hated his guts.
But of course, she’d hated a lot of people. She’d turned being difficult to deal with into a point of personal pride.
Turner was too young and jaded, too big and over-sexed. I’d always thought so, still thought so, even with my newfound liking for him.
He was growing on me, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have his quirks.
He had a raw-boned, hungry look to him. He was tall and muscular, with tan skin and bright blue eyes. He kept his dark hair very close cut, his jaw perpetually shadowed.
He had the bad boy thing going, and not one qualm about playing it up to the nth degree.
We’d been bonding lately, because I found that his company was suddenly refreshing. I’d started coming to his house for a weekly coffee/vent session.
I could talk to him about things I couldn’t share with my other friends and associates. There was something very nice about having a buddy that didn’t tell you what a creep you were for sleeping with a younger woman.
On the contrary, he wanted to know the details, right down to her measurements.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, as we rehashed my messy love life, yet again. He just didn’t get it. I liked to think of it as an age gap. He saw no reason to want more from a woman than sex. “This hot young thing wants to do the nasty with you every which way, and you do, and then she leaves, and you have a problem with it.”
I rolled my eyes. We’d been over this part plenty. “Yes. I have a problem with it. I want to see her again, and I can’t find her.”
He whistled low, wiggling his brows. You could say a lot about him, but the guy did not take himself too seriously. It was a quality I was really starting to appreciate, as I made a concerted effort to take myself less seriously.
“She must be a piece of work,” he mused. “Is she hotter than Candy?”
I glanced around, not wanting to offend his assistant, the aggressive Candy.
I nodded. There was no question.
“That’s impressive. Candy’s a dime. I only hire dimes.”
This was a fact that was well known. He made it well known.
“Iris is in a league of her own. I’m not exaggerating.”
“No, I believe you. You’re an upfront kind of guy. Not one to stray from the facts, which is ironic, since you write fiction so well. So you meet this unbelievably hot woman, with very fuckable tits, which is just great, I have to add, and she pursues you, fucks your brains out, you fuck her brains out, she disappears, and you’re stuck in this dilemma, like, what the fuck did she see in me? Why’d she leave? Will she be back? And then she comes back, two months later, gives you a severe case of blue balls, says she loves you, and disappears again, for what, a few weeks now? That about cover it?”
“Yeah, I guess, if you want to oversimplify it. I knew it was all doomed, anyway, but it just feels so unfinished.”
“Doomed? Why doomed?”
“She is way out of my league. There’s never a kosher reason for a number gap like ours.”
He shook his head, giving me a look like he was my disappointed father.
He pointed at me. “You, my friend, have low self-esteem. Candy!” he called out loudly for his assistant.
She came sauntering in, pulling her Jessica Rabbit bit, red hair, red lips, crazy curves. Where
the hell did he find these women? I’d met a few of his assistants, and they were all over the top, oozing sexuality like this.
“Yeah, babe? I was working on something.”
“Posting your cleavage on Instagram again is not working on something. You think I don’t know what you’re up to in there? You have three extra buttons undone, and my phone sends me updates when you’re slacking off.”
She smirked, totally shameless. “Good pic though, right?”
He shrugged. “They look better in person. Dair and I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
He pointed at me, grinning. “Be totally honest. Would you fuck my friend here?”
She blinked a few times, then looked at me, giving me a disconcerting once over. “Yes,” she said, after a few beats. “Why, does he want to fuck me?”
“No, my little nymphomaniac narcissist. This will blow your mind, but he doesn’t even follow you on Instagram. This is hypothetical. You can look up the definition for that later, but in the meantime, don’t interrupt, just stick to the—”
“Tyrant,” she muttered.
“That’s right. And you’re proving my point. Back to what I was saying. Why would you fuck him?”
She went back to studying me. It was highly disconcerting. “Because he’s hot. Nice bod, I can tell. Clothes are a bit sloppy, but his jawline alone makes me wet.”
“Would you still fuck him if I told you he was dead broke?”
She bit her lip, her eyes still raking over me. “Yes. I wouldn’t marry his broke ass, but I’d sure as hell fuck him.”
He waved her off. “Thank you for your expert opinion. Carry on with something that hopefully resembles work this time.”
Candy sashayed out of the room, putting some extra sway into it, sending me a few smoldering, sidelong glances as she went.
“See that? She’s a dime and she’d fuck you, even if you were broke. You need to get out of your own self-loathing head and give yourself an ounce of credit. You don’t get laid enough because you’re a hermit. If you went out more, chicks would be dropping their panties for you all over the place, even if they didn’t know you were loaded.”
“Yes, but—”
“Okay, now. Back to the mysterious Iris of the fuckable tits. She was last seen coming back to find you in a public place, like a stalker, then she’s gone again, and you’re worried, again that was it. She’ll be back. She obviously enjoyed herself. It’s that simple.”
“But did you catch the part where she’s known who I was the whole time? She knew about my money, because she admitted that she’s been reading my books since she was a kid. She definitely wasn’t upfront about that before. And when she left the first time, two months ago, she acted deeply offended by the fact I assumed she knew I had money before I took her home the first time.”
I let him think about that, realize how incriminating it was. I’d certainly been obsessing about it myself.
“So fucking what, dude?” he finally shot back. “So she knew who you were and pretended she didn’t. Doesn’t prove she’s not into you.”
“It proves she’s a liar.”
“Again, so fucking what? Most people are liars. She’s nice to you. She’s into you. Sounds like she’s a fucking ace in bed. She hasn’t asked for a thing from you, aside from your dick. I say just go with it. She shows up, you fuck her however you please. She leaves, take that Lourdes chick out. She’s hot. Probably more of the relationship type, which is what you’re looking for, God only knows why.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t even imagine going out on a date with someone at this point. My head was too screwed up for that.
“Not ready for that yet? Good. So keep it simple. Go fuck Candy. I won’t take offense. I was planning to bang her when she quits, but you can have her, if you’re so inclined. Hell, go bend her over her desk right now. I’ll put on some headphones and pretend it isn’t happening.”
“That’s generous,” I got out, feeling slightly nauseated at the thought. I wasn’t even that tempted, and just thinking about it made me feel a little guilty, which was ridiculous, because Iris and I had never so much as talked about being exclusive.
And for all I knew, she was with that fucker in the Jag as we spoke.
“Well, you’re my friend, and I feel sorry for you. Forty years old without an ounce of game. Sad old bastard. Listen, if you’re not ready to fuck someone else, just go in there and at least let Candy give you a blow job. She’s waxed on, ad nauseum, about how good she is at oral. She’s always walking around, sucking on something or other, trying to get a rise out of me. Literally.”
“You have the most messed up relationships with your assistants, I swear,” I told him, and not for the first time.
“They call me the tyrant. Did you know that? Often. My employees, past and present. It’s become my nickname. I think they started a Facebook group about it.”
I tried not to laugh, though I doubted he was exaggerating much.
“Don’t believe me? We can ask Candy about it. I like her to be honest. She knows that. We ask her and she’ll tell you I am hellish to work for. A demanding bastard. I don’t like to ask for things twice, and I expect her to catch on quick.
I explain on day one that I don’t fuck where I sleep. I’m civilized like that. And if I sign your paycheck, fuuuck no, I’m not making my life messy. So what does she do? She dresses like a fucking sex kitten and brushes her tits against me every chance she gets. She keeps a jar of lollipops on her desk and sucks on them whenever she thinks I might notice.
And she’s not the exception, she’s the rule. This is how it always goes: They sign a lot of paperwork, agree to a lot of things, hate working for me, and about three months in, they all quit.”
“Because you’re a tyrant,” I pointed out.
“No, you see, that is the interesting part. They never, ever quit because of that. I make it clear from day one, if you want to fuck me, you won’t be working for me when it happens. No exceptions. They all agree, and a few months later, after brushing their tits against me, bending over to show me their sweet little asses, me saying no all the while, and what happens? They quit, and beg me to fuck them.”
“And what do you do?”
“I oblige. You’ve seen the women I hire. I fuck their brains out. This lasts anywhere from a day to a week, and then I send them on their way, with a glowing reference, because I’m nice like that. Though I have to say, the whole thing pisses me off. I like the eye candy, but I’m sick of training them.
You see how Candy is? You came to the door, she didn’t answer it, so you had to let yourself in. We had to serve ourselves coffee, because she was busy taking cleavage selfies. She’s terrible, since she’s relatively new, and by the time I get her trained properly, she’ll be quitting to, yanno, fuck me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Poor guy. These are really relatable problems you have.”
He grinned. “They’re about as relatable as your problems, my friend. Hot, barely legal blonde stalking you, obsessed with your dick.”
I cringed inwardly. He had a point. Sadly, jaded as he was, he almost always did.
“Candy!” he shouted.
She came sauntering back in with a smile. “What, babe?”
“I was just telling Dair about that private Facebook group. It’s called Turner the Tyrant or something. Tell me the truth. Are you in that group?”
“Yep.” She looked pretty smug about it. “Those women go off about you on the daily.”
He grinned like it made him happy. “Please give them a message for me. I don’t give two, scratch that, I do not give one solitary fuck if you all want to vent about me together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Your last assistant, Coffee . . . ” she began.
I had to blink a few times at that name.
“ . . . just did a post about the size of your dick,” she continued. “She hates your guts, but she’s doing you a service. She said you were nine inches hard
.” She held up her arm, making a big circle with the fingers of one hand. “And thick. I called bullshit. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I just about choked on the sip of coffee I’d just taken.
What the fuck? The sad thing was, this was a pretty average interaction for them. I was starting to think he just kept an assistant around for entertainment purposes. Candy certainly never seemed to do any actual work.
“You trying again to get me to show you my dick?” he asked her.
“You afraid to show it to me?”
He waved her off. “Go ask Coffee, if you want to know. You won’t be seeing it, not while you work for me.”
“Tyrant,” she muttered.
“But for the record, I think Coffee was doing me a disservice. I’d say it’s nine and a half inches hard.”
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention on me, which was not an improvement.
She sat down next to me on the sofa I was sprawled out on, getting way too close.
“He gets off on being withholding,” she told me, her hand on my thigh.
She pressed her big, hard, fake tits against my side as she leaned in close to whisper loudly, “I’m hoping you like to get off on something else.”
Fuck.
I was so sexually frustrated that I almost considered it, but I didn’t actually want her so much as relief and distraction, and, illogical or not, it felt wrong, and I felt guilty for entertaining it for even a millisecond.
“I’m with someone,” I said, and even I didn’t know if that was a total lie.
I preferred to think of it as a slight exaggeration.
“I’m cool with that,” Candy purred. “She can join us.”
“On that note, I think it’s time for me to go,” I said, standing abruptly.
“I’ll walk you out,” Turner said, laughter in his voice. “Candy, back off. You’re scaring him. He’s old school.”
I didn’t look back to see how she responded to that.
“God, she’s aggressive,” I said. It wasn’t a compliment.
“It’s that generation. The gender roles are reversing. They come after us now.”