Chemical Attraction

  “Ooh.” She turns and winces as if she were struck on the cheek. “Don’t go messing with those gigantors. They’ve got big everything, and I do mean everything. I dated an ex-basketball player once—”

  Ember nods my way. “Czechoslovakian. Nine-footer at least.”

  Jolie waves it off. “That boy had a meat stick the size of a sledge hammer, and neither of us could figure out what to do with it. Save yourself the trouble, girl.” She pats Ember over the shoulder. “Pair yourself with a handsome devil like this.” She gives a sly wink my way. “I bet his wee willie will fit quite nicely.” She lets out a hoot before heading to Chelle.

  “Did she just…?” I can’t bring myself to finish the thought.

  “Oh, she did.” Ember steps in close until her cinnamon perfume warms my senses. “My mother isn’t afraid of anyone or anything. She certainly doesn’t mind offending, but most of the time she’s just kicking around the truth.”

  “Sounds like the apple doesn’t fall far from the truth.”

  She makes a face at me, searing her eyes into mine. “Let’s see… Snow White’s father was a prince—I guess that makes you a royal pain.” She bites down on her bottom lip, batting those long lashes at me like a threat, and something in me demands to have her.

  “I think we both know the only royal pain around here is you.” My hand glides over her back as she leans in another notch, closing the gap between us. “You want to show me around and help pick something out?”

  “I know just the thing.” Fifteen minutes later, the three of us are rooted to the table with an arsenal of acrylic paints. Chelle is working steady on her Snow White piggy bank, her little tongue protruding to the side as she pours her full concentration on the effort. Ember is painting a ceramic bicycle, and I’m beginning to sense a theme with her. And me—I’m painting an oversized ass–as in donkey. As soon as Ember presented it to me like a prize, Chelle nearly died of laughter. She immediately begged me to paint it for her budding ceramics collection. Something tells me that Ember just introduced Chelle to an obsessive new hobby. Not that I mind. Jolie is a kick to be around. Whenever she thinks we’re not looking, she’s snapping pictures of us on her phone. She’s insistent that I’m famous—more like infamous, her daughter was eager to inform her.

  An hour goes by, and the three of us surrender our treasures to Jolie.

  “I’ll have these fired immediately. You can pick them up in a few days.”

  “Next week.” Ember nods to Chelle. “And then we’ll do another batch.”

  “Yes!” Chelle pulls her fist in with gusto as if she just won money on the winning team of the World Series. “I knew she was the right person for the job, Daddy,” Chelle smarts my way. “Mommy says she’s too good for you and ga-gested that I tell you to keep on looking.”

  Ember and Jolie break out into a riotous laugh.

  Jolie tucks her pinky in the corner of her eye to dry her tears. “You tell your mama that my baby girl can hold her own. There isn’t anything your daddy can bring that my girl can’t handle.”

  Just as I’m about to say something in my defense, anything, the bell chimes from the door as an oversized dude in a dirty T-shirt and yellow pants strides in. I spot a fire truck parked outside and a few other firemen headed to the bakery next door.

  “Arlo!” Ember leaps for him and latches on with a hungry embrace. “What timing! We were just leaving. This is Chelle, the little girl I’m fortunate enough to hang out with part-time, and her father, the donation station.”

  Chelle giggles up a storm before looking past him and gasping. “A real-life fire engine, Daddy! Can I take a look?”

  Ember takes her by the hand. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll let you sit behind the steering wheel.” Ember leads her out the door, and Jolie follows along.

  It’s just Arlo the firefighter staring me down like I owe him money.

  “Nice to meet you.” I hold out a hand. “Dexter Houston. I work over at—”

  “Leland.” He folds his enormous arms across his chest, and I glance briefly at those inflatable muscles of his. “Look, my sister says you’re running that circus she’s tangled herself in. I don’t want to see her hurt.” He takes an intimidating step in close, and I can’t help but gauge how far the exit is. Too damn far to make a clean break. I’ll have to break a chair over his head if I plan on making a run for it.

  “I can’t control what Ember feels. She knows what she’s gotten herself into. She’s a strong girl. She’ll be fine.” I take a step toward the door, and he shoves his hand to my chest hard as hitting a wall.

  “My mom shot me a few pictures of the two of you. Whispering in her ear? Touching her hair? Dude, don’t fuck with me. I know when someone’s got the hots for my sister, and you’re no exception.”

  Crap. I was certainly whispering to Ember because some of those heated exchanges we were having were simply not meant for Chelle’s ears. I couldn’t help it, though. It was Ember who started the racy exchange, and it was that damn donkey that sponsored it. I had to answer her question. Why yes, I do have balls the size of a donkey’s. And the hair thing? I couldn’t let her dip her newly dyed tresses into a puddle of pink paint. Anyone seated next to her would have done the same.

  I offer a dry smile to her brute of a brother. “I’m sorry if you think that. I promise I have no desire to pursue your sister in that manner. I’m faculty at Leland, and I happen to enjoy my job. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to pluck my daughter off that ladder she’s climbing before she leaps down and leaves an impression of herself in the street.” I head out to find Ember, right on her heels, and they both do one of those king of the world poses while Jolie documents the entire event on her phone. That phone is equivalent to a snitch at this point. Arlo, here, nearly picked the low hanging fruit off my body for the hell of it just for looking at his sister. Nope, Arlo cannot know what I’m up to. Good thing this is a quick shot. Once she openly declares her love for me, I’ll cut her loose, make it look like her own delusions were running wild. Arlo just so happened to remind me in a roundabout way that Ember is off-limits in more ways than one. I might not be a professor at Leland, but I’m pretty sure the Dean frowns upon employees hitting on coeds. Anything between Ember and me will have to be kept tightly under wraps, undercover, under heated sheets if I’m lucky, and I’ve never fired a shot that I didn’t hit the sexual bull’s-eye with yet.

  Sorry, Arlo, this girl is mine in every sinful way.

  The next day, Ember arranges for Chelle to take a ride around Moon Ridge on the fire truck they were both defying the laws of gravity on. And the day after that, I spring for pizza, and we play board games until it’s time for Chelle to hit the sack. Ember stays an extra hour, and I pull out a deck of cards. We play Black Jack for Oreos with Ember winning a good portion of the chocolate loot. Ember is a blast to have around. Chelle loves her. My body demands to have her.

  Yes. Hiring Ember Sparks was a winning move indeed.

  I’m going to get my steak, and I’m going to eat it, too—but a part of me is craving another meal entirely.

  * * *

  The top of the tower on a Saturday night is usually occupied by drunken frat boys and coeds alike, each trying to nail down a memory that will last more than the fifteen seconds it takes to make it. But on this spring evening, with its clear auburn sky, fresh after a sunset that burned across the sky like a meteorite, the rooftop is covered with a small army, each with a black vest with the letters TSE emblazoned over the back in neon orange. It’s the night of Lenard and Ember’s third date. By this stage in the game, the electricity is heart pounding, the audience is screaming at the top of their lungs for that first elusive kiss to ensue. And with the other dozen couples, it already has. Lenard and Ember are the holdouts of the group—and as furious as I’d typically be, I’m not entirely opposed to their chaste status.

  Dan nudges me in the arm as we stand to the side, the wind lashing around us, the floodlights set up by the crew blindi
ng us from above. “Let me get this straight. You think she’s close to offering up the sushi?”

  “For shit’s sake.” I glance around, suppressing the urge to deck him, sending him sailing twelve stories to the ground floor for the verbal malfeasance. It was clearly an error on my part to quote Rowen and Lane. “Have a little decorum. No, I don’t think she’s ready to offer anything up.” I watch from a safe distance as Ember sits in a canvas chair while getting her hair done. “If she did offer up her body, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t resist. She’s beautiful—smart as a whip, too.”

  Dan grunts as we inspect her, “I bet she carries a whip, if you know what I mean. If she offers to tie you up”—he clucks his tongue—“I’d think twice about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were smuggling a bayonet in that purse of hers. Consider what those boys said a warning. She’s gunning for you, dude. And she’s coming for you hard.”

  My perverted mind takes a moment to rearrange those words, and I can see her springing up for air while seated over my lap, her skin glowing pink in the night.

  “But why?” I can’t help but ask. “It makes zero sense. You think she’s still pissed about that biking mishap? It’s practically ancient history at this point. Besides, our latest biking adventure eclipsed it by far.” I filled Dan in on that lip exchange the night it happened like some giddy schoolgirl.

  “I don’t know, but this is starting to stink like Limburger.”

  “No way,” I say it fast and sharp like a reprimand. “She’s got a good heart.”

  Ember does a double take in our direction and spikes right out of her seat. That tight red dress she’s donned hugs her every curve. It’s wrapped around her, tied off on the side, and I’m half-tempted to pull one of those dangling strings and see what happens.

  “Hey!” She waves wildly with the look of both shock and surprise as she runs this way, her tits pumping up and down, unrestrained from anything holding them back.

  “Damn,” Dan grunts it out. “She’s got a nice rack, too.”

  “Be quiet,” I mutter without moving my lips. “I forbid you to speak.”

  “Oh my God!” Her eyes light up like flares as she latches onto my brother unexpectedly.

  Crap. What in the hell is happening? “I’m over here, sweetheart.” I give one of her curls a slight tug as she continues to howl into my brother’s neck. Her long, luscious thighs are wrapped tight around his body, and a heated flare of anger rips through me. I’m about to rip my brother up for the hell of it.

  She pulls back and takes my brother in, that grin on her face only spreading wider. “I love you!” she shrills so loud half the production crew turns our way for a brief moment. “Oh my God, you have to sign my boob!” She jumps down from his waist and takes off screaming for a pen.

  Dan lets out a riotous chuckle. “The chick’s got great taste in men, I’ll give her that. And I was right about the nice rack, too—at least as far as I can feel ’em. I’ll give more detail once I scribble my name over one.” He shrugs. “Sometimes they want me to kiss it. You know, kiss it and make it feel better?”

  I knot up his shirt and pull him in without thinking. “You don’t touch her rack or any other part of her.”

  Ember comes striding back, this time with her feet in heels. That tight red dress bares a daring cleavage, and for a second, I consider shielding her from my brother and his budding hard-on. He’s a bigger pervert than I am, and from this day forth I’m banning him from the set.

  “Hey, big boy!” She hands my brother a Sharpie before shooting me a dirty look. “I saw that by the way.” She irons the wrinkles from his T-shirt. “Nice try at intimidation, but I’m the only man handler around here.” She glides her hand over his chest and gives a little growl while looking right at him. “Now, get to signing.” She turns her back to me, and judging by that stupid look on my brother’s face, she just whipped one out. “Right above the nipple. Please.”

  My brother grunts as he willingly complies, and Ember tips her head back, moaning to the moon as if she were having the time of her life.

  “Oh, that’s it! Right there. Yeah, honey, a little harder. Faster.” She edges her shoulder toward him and, swear to God, my brother is about to go flying over this rooftop. I have no problem with committing a felony this evening. I’m sure Chelle will have a nice life with Trish and Bart.

  Crap. What am I saying? It’s like I’m losing my freaking mind over this girl. It’s bad enough she’s haunting my thoughts—first thing when I wake up, last thing when I finally get to sleep. Hell, I see her in my dreams—only then it’s me bringing out those groans in her, and my brother and his twisted pen are nowhere to be found.

  “Dot it with a kiss.” She tips her chest up, and I go into full Karate mode slicing the air between them.

  “It’s time for your mic to get strapped on,” I say, pulling my brother and his puckering lips the hell away from her.

  Ember struts off, giggling like a teenager. “I got my boob signed by the lead singer of Leather and Chaps!” She lets out a hoot that echoes over the campus below.

  Petra strides over with those Poindexter glasses, that permanent scowl on her face whenever she sees me.

  “Looks like we found someone who gives Ember that elusive spark. Maybe we should mic you up, Dan?” She gives him a playful knock with her elbow. “What do you think, Dex? If this love connection between Lenny and Em doesn’t hit its stride tonight, I think we need to initiate the Samson option.”

  The Samson option is technically my brainchild. Once we’re in too deep with a couple and the chemistry simply isn’t there, we bring in a few more suitors and at least find someone who puts a smile on the girl’s face. We can’t leave the audience high and dry. It’ll tank ratings. I’ll lose funding. I’ll be forced to work the family business—the brewery. Not that the brewery is hell. It’s just never been my baby. It’s my father’s and his alone.

  “No.” I hear myself say it loud and clear, and both Petra and Dan raise a brow my way. “They’ll hit it off.” I give a tight smile along with the false assurance.

  Petra heads out as the cameras start rolling. Dan and I watch from afar as Lenard and Ember start in on what might pan out to be the stalest date in The Social Experiment’s history. Lenard goes on and on about his interest in astrophysics, and just when I think Ember is about to doze off, taking about a dozen cameramen to dreamland with her, she rises to her feet and pulls the front of her dress open as if it were a robe, and the poor guy’s face goes white as chalk.

  “I got my boob signed by Dan Houston!” Ember screams into the night like a drunken sorority girl, and Seth calls for the crew to cut the cameras.

  He looks to me, slitting his throat with his finger. “Can’t use it. She’s one free spirit.”

  I flick my hand through the air, and the crew wraps up the night.

  “She’s a free spirit, all right.” Dan sniffs the air as if proud to be a part of her primitive outburst. “You think you can contain that? Little bro, you wouldn’t know where to begin. That ember is about to spark a wildfire strong enough to reduce your world to cinders. Word to the wise: don’t play with fire. If you do, you’re liable to get burned alive. Hell, judging by the way you almost took me out, I think you’re already toast.” He offers up a firm pat to my shoulder before taking off.

  The crew disappears one by one, as a skeletal staff remains to disassemble the mock stage intended to bring out the romance.

  Lenard is ushered to the elevator by both Petra and Seth, clearly in need of a stiff drink at the Underground after that shock therapy Ember threw at him.

  But it’s her I wait for.

  Ember bounces out of the makeup tent in her sky-high heels, her dress glowing like a ruby under the three-quarter moon, that ever-present grin on her face expanding like elastic once she sees me brooding.

  “Where’s my favorite Houston brother?” She gives a quick wink, and I can tell she enjoys tugging at my balls.

  “He’s at my p
lace.” I bleed a wicked grin myself. “He said show up in an hour.” I brush her cheek with the back of my hand, and it feels like a downed wire landing in a puddle of water. “He’s interested in mapping out the rest of your body with his lips. And, Ember? It is your favorite Houston brother who’ll be there to greet you.”

  Her mouth falls open, but I don’t bother waiting around for a response. Instead, I head back to my place and wait for her to show.

  And she will.

  The Devil is in the Details

  Ember

  Why in the name of all things holy are you going to his place???

  I’m almost amused that Sophie expounds her curiosity with triple question marks.

  Please. We KNOW why! Vi pipes up.

  I press my lips tight as I stare at the phone. I’m already parked outside of Dexter Houston’s enormous estate—or erotic waterhole, as my thighs prefer to call it. Honest to God, I don’t know where he gets his fortune, but I’m guessing it’s not as a researcher who dabbles in broken hearts with a side of humiliation. Not that anyone has incurred a broken heart as of yet, but I’m bound and determined to make that happen—to Dexter Houston himself. How I’ll enjoy the day his ego explodes all over the walls like a paint ball.

  My stomach sours at the thought. Do I really want that? I mean, I did. I think I still do.

  Chelle blinks through my mind, and I blink her right back out. She’s sweet and beautiful, and far too smart for her britches. I’m sure it would destroy her to see her daddy so upset. But then, this is Dexter we’re talking about. He’d never let on that his heart was sliced in two. Those tears he shed over losing his sister come to mind. Dexter has a heart. But I’m guessing he buried it right along with Meghan.

  Would you look at that? I’ve gone from loathing to pitying him in less than three seconds. But I’m guessing he didn’t invite me here tonight to join his pity party—more like the party in his pants.