Good Girl Gone

  “I have a very public life,” she tells me.

  “And?”

  “And some things I like to keep private.”

  “Okay.” I heave a sigh. “So I get to be your dirty little secret.”

  Her brow furrows. “Secret, yes. But not dirty.” She grins. “Unless you want to get dirty. Then I’m willing.”

  “But you don’t want anyone to know about it.”

  “I have a very public boyfriend.” She winces when she says it, and then she freezes when I go stiff beneath her. “He’s not a real boyfriend. He was my way of keeping the tabloids satisfied. He goes to public events with me so I don’t get hit on by every money-grabbing wannabe in the world. He’s kind of a buffer.”

  “Do you sleep with him?”

  She laughs. “He’s gay.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nods. “Totally.”

  “And no one has found out?”

  “He’s very discreet.”

  “I don’t want to share you.” I sit back a little so I can watch her face. “What exactly do you hope to get out of this?”

  “With you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I like you.” She shrugs. “I like spending time with you. I like snuggling with you. And I’d like to have sex with you at some point. Preferably sooner rather than later, but I can wait.”

  She’s been offering me sex since she met me. “But you said you’ve never met a dick you liked.” I assumed she meant sex wasn’t enjoyable for her.

  She scratches her nose and looks away. “Damn, you’re digging awfully deep.”

  “I do try.”

  She shakes her head and a lock of hair falls over her eye. I brush it back. “I’ve never enjoyed sex.”

  “Never?”

  “Ever.”

  “Well, damn.”

  She sits back. “What?” Her brow furrows.

  “If we’re both offering confessions, I’m not even sure I can have an orgasm.” Hell, I might as well lay my shit bare too.

  “But you’re hard.” She wiggles her ass in my lap.

  “Apparently.” I laugh. “That’s new. You might be the reason. I’m not entirely sure.”

  “So you haven’t…” She points down toward my dick.

  “Not in a really long time. Before my accident.”

  “Seriously?” she squeaks.

  “Unfortunately,” I bite out.

  She kisses me quickly and I wrap my arms around her in a hug, holding her until she goes soft in my arms. “Hey, Josh,” she says quietly.

  “Hey, Star.”

  “You should go shower. You really stink.”

  I laugh. “Thanks.”

  I get in the shower with my dick still hard. It doesn’t ease up, no matter how cool I turn the water. So I grab some soap, wrap my hand around myself, and start to take care of business. In my head, I imagine that it’s Star with her hand wrapped around me.

  I jump and let go of my dick when she comes into the shower with me. She’s wearing my shirt, still, and she steps beneath the water, getting drenched immediately.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as she sinks down and shoves my knees apart, making room for herself in between.

  “Making sure your shit works,” she says. She looks me in the eye. “Do you mind?”

  “Well…”

  She wraps her fist around me and looks down at my dick. Her hair is soaked, and wet tendrils of it pour water down her face. I push her hair back, and she looks up at me with gratitude, so I keep my hand on her head, holding her hair back. I should stop her. I really should stop her. But my dick is pulsing in her hand.

  She gently pulls my dick away from my stomach and wraps her lips around the head. I wish I could thrust into her mouth, but I can’t. Okay, so this is new. I can’t push into her mouth. I just have to let her do her thing.

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  She giggles around my dick and says something that sounds like “you’re welcome” but I’m not sure. “Like this?” she says, but her mouth is full of my dick so it sounds more like “wike wiss.”

  “Just like that,” I whisper.

  Her hand shuttles up and down and I’m ready to come in two seconds flat. “Pull back,” I warn. “Star, pull back,” I say again, this time a little frantic. My balls feel like they’re going to climb up my throat. “Star, I’m going to come…”

  She nods, her lips sealed around me.

  “Star, please pop off,” I beg.

  She shakes her head.

  I grab her face and stick a finger in the corner of her mouth to break the suction. She mewls out a little noise, but she pulls back. I come with her hand shuttling up and down my dick.

  I watch as my come shoots across her arm, splashing against the shower tiles. She adjusts the angle, and it hits the shirt she’s wearing. She jerks the T-shirt over her head mid-stroke, and I come on her tits, which just makes me come all the harder. That’s me, blanketing her with my come, and she’s smiling like she just won the fucking lottery.

  My dick doesn’t go soft right away. It stays hard and she doesn’t let me go, not until I pry her fingers off of me and bring her hand to my lips. “Why did you do that?”

  She shrugs and her cheeks turn red. “I just wanted to see if it works.”

  “You were worried that it wouldn’t?” I tilt her face up to mine so I can look into her eyes.

  “I wasn’t worried at all. But you were. That’s why I did it.” Her brow furrows. “You didn’t like it?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? I loved it.” I turn her so that I can wash her boobs off. Then I pat her bottom. Now it’s her turn. “Go wait for me to dry off. On the bed. Naked.”

  She bites her lower lip and shakes her head at me. Then she walks out of my bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of wet panties. I rinse off really quickly, feeling like my heart is in my throat. I dry off, wondering how I can arrange her on the bed so that I make her come. This is all so new to me. I feel like I’m a virgin on prom night.

  But when I go into the bedroom, she’s not there. “Star!” I call.

  I get no answer. Her wet panties have been discarded on the floor.

  “Star!” I call again. But she’s gone. She has left entirely.

  Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it.

  I strike my hand against the doorjamb. This wasn’t fucking supposed to happen.

  Star

  I grab my bag and go to Peck’s apartment. I have a key because Peck gave me one, and I’m not afraid to use it. I’ll just stay here until they come home from the hospital. But when I get here, I see that they’re already home. I thought they kept newborns and new moms for at least twenty-four hours, but I guess I was wrong.

  Emilio and Marta are here too.

  My parents are awesome. They’re the absolute best. They’re also nosy as hell. Emilio, my adoptive father, was a rock and roll star long ago, and he married Marta when they were still young, and then they adopted me and Wren. That was when I was almost a teenager. They jumped into my life like they had always been there. And they’re still in it, even when I don’t want them to be.

  “You’re sleeping with the felon?” Emilio asks.

  I heave out a sigh. “Marta, will you make him stop?” I whine.

  She points a finger at him. “Behave yourself,” she warns.

  “So you are sleeping with the felon?” Emilio asks again.

  “I spent the night at his house,” I explain. “That’s all.”

  Emilio glares at me. “In his bed.”

  “If you want specifics, we didn’t do anything. We just slept.”

  “You told me that when you were seventeen and I caught you in the backseat with the boy who lived down the street.”

  I don’t say anything, because he’s right.

  “You were lying then, too.” He puts his palms on his knees and pushes to his feet. He walks over to Marta. “Give me that baby so I’ll have an excuse not to strangle your daughter.?
?? He sits down next to her and Marta puts Sammy in his arms.

  “So she’s my daughter when you think she’s being promiscuous?”

  “Who’s being p-promiscuous?” Peck asks as she steps out of the bedroom. She was taking a quick nap while Marta and Emilio were here to cuddle the baby. She yawns and sits down on the opposite end of the couch.

  “Me, apparently,” I tell her. I roll my eyes at her.

  “You show up with your hair all wet, no makeup on, and a bag over your shoulder, which means you’re running from something,” Emilio says. “And I’d bet my lucky quarter that whatever you’re running from has a dick. And you wouldn’t run from a dick unless you’d slept with him.” Marta slaps his arm. “What?” he asks, raising his shoulders. “She always runs from men after she sleeps with them.”

  I lay my head back against the couch and groan. “Do we really have to talk about this right now?”

  “Yes,” Emilio says at the same time Marta says, “No.”

  “No, we don’t,” Marta insists, talking over Emilio. She glares at him. “Let her be. For now.”

  “Do I need to go have a talk with that boy?” he asks me.

  I shake my head. “That’s not necessary.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Give him time to mess everything up before you go have a talk with him.” I take the baby from him so that he might take pity on the lady holding the baby and knock it off.

  “What’s he like?” Marta asks. She smiles at me and rubs the top of my head as she walks past me. Sam and Peck’s apartment is one big open space with a huge kitchen, so I can still talk to her while she washes their dishes and cleans up a little for them.

  A grin pulls at the corners of my lips. “He’s really nice. And funny. And sweet.”

  “He looks like a thug.” Emilio glowers at me.

  “Hello, pot. Meet kettle,” I tell him.

  He flips me the bird, which makes me laugh.

  “Seriously, Melio,” I say, “I’m twenty-six years old.”

  He leans toward me and says slowly, “And I’m your f-a-t-h-e-r. It’s my job to be sure you’re okay.”

  “But you don’t get full access to my love life!”

  “So he’s more than just a lay,” he says.

  He jumps when a wet dishrag sails from the kitchen and hits him on the back of the head. “What the fuck?”

  “Knock it off,” Marta snaps. Then I know the interrogation is over. Marta the referee has called the game. Thank God.

  Emilio mutters something that sounds like “I’ll pay him a visit later.”

  Sammy starts to squirm in my arms. He’s only a day old, but he’s strong. He starts to suck on his little fist. “I think he needs his mommy,” I tell Peck.

  Peck smiles and takes him from me. She winks at me and then says loudly, “I’m going to go in the bedroom and see if I can feed him.” She nods her head at me.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “You’re not going to leave, are you?” Peck asks Emilio and Marta.

  “Not yet,” Marta calls. She’s elbow-deep in suds in the sink.

  I follow Peck into the bedroom, and stop when I see Sam standing in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a towel around his hips. I whistle and he shakes his head. He takes some clothes out of a drawer and goes into the bathroom.

  “I didn’t make him mad, did I?”

  Peck waves her hand in the air, quickly dismissing it. “He’s getting used to all of you.” She laughs. Then she sobers. “So, what’s up with Josh?”

  I shrug and avoid her eyes, because she can always tell when I’m lying. “Nothing.”

  Her eyes narrow at me. “Spill it. You know you want to.”

  I drop my face into my hands and groan. Then I look up at her. “So I kind of gave him a blow job.” I huff all the words out in one breath. The bathroom door opens halfway through my sentence and then closes quickly. Shit.

  Peck startles. “You did what?”

  I nod. I know she heard me. Hell, Sam probably heard me too. “I did.”

  “But…you don’t…do that…like…ever.”

  Like I need for her to remind me.

  “Apparently I do.”

  “Tell me what happened.” She motions for me to continue by rolling her finger.

  I lie back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. “So we were talking and he sort of admitted that he didn’t know if he could get off. And he seemed really surprised that he was even getting hard around me. So, since he didn’t know and I didn’t know, I figured there was only one way to find out.”

  The bathroom door closes again.

  Fuck me.

  “Sam!” I call.

  He pops his head out.

  “Would you come out of the bathroom already? God!”

  He comes out with his fingers stuck in his ears. “I don’t want to hear what you’re talking about. Ever. Never.”

  Peck laughs. “Quit acting like you’re a virgin.”

  “He didn’t hear me, did he?” I mouth at Peck.

  “Did you hear what Star said about Josh’s dick?” she asks him.

  He looks at her. “Let’s just say that I now know more about Josh’s dick than I ever wanted to know.”

  “So, does it work?” Peck asks me.

  Sam stuffs his fingers in his ears and sings out “La la la la la la.” He goes out of the room and closes the door behind him.

  “He’ll be scarred for life,” I tell Peck.

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “It works,” I blurt out. “It totally works.”

  “And he didn’t know this before you?”

  I shake my head. “Apparently not.”

  “And he just came right out and told you that he wasn’t sure if it would work?”

  Sam comes back into the room and gives Peck a glass of water. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters and he walks back out.

  “So, yes, he just told me he wasn’t sure. But I knew it got hard, because I felt it. And then he was jacking off in the shower and I wanted to be sure, so I did it.”

  “And you were okay with it?” She stares into my eyes. She knows about my history. She knows why sex is hard for me. She knows why I don’t do random bouts of sex with strange guys.

  “It didn’t squick me out or anything.” That alone is not normal for me.

  “Well, that’s good.”

  I shrug. “I guess so.”

  “Is it because he’s not threatening?” She takes a sip of her water.

  I lean forward. “Have you seen him?” He has tattoos everywhere, including on his face. Gang signs. Homemade graffiti. He’s incredibly threatening. “He took care of me when I was drunk. If he’d wanted to take advantage of me, he could have done it then.”

  “But he didn’t take advantage then, if he even could.”

  “He could have made me do just about anything that night. And he didn’t. He was sweet and kind and good.”

  She smiles. “You like him.”

  I nod. “But then afterward, he wanted to return the favor, so I snuck out of the apartment before he could get out of the shower.”

  “He offered to do that?” Her brows shoot up.

  I nod and twirl a piece of hair around my finger.

  “But you didn’t let him.”

  I scoff. “Of course not.”

  “But you’re thinking about it.”

  “No-o-o-o,” I say slowly.

  “Yes, you are. You’re totally thinking about it.” She laughs. “I bet he could make you come your brains out.”

  “Does Sam do that for you?”

  “All the time.” She laughs again. But then she sobers. “I like Josh a lot.”

  “Me too,” I say, my voice small.

  “Good.”

  I don’t know if it’s good or not.

  My phone goes off in my pocket and I see that it’s Josh when I pull it out.

  Him: Was that a pity blowjob?

  Me: A what?

  H
im: Like a pity fuck, but not.

  I wait a beat. I don’t know what to say.

  Then I opt for the truth.

  Me: That was me seeing if I could be what you need.

  Him: What does that mean?

  Me: I’m not very good at sex.

  Him: You could have fooled me.

  I snort. Peck smiles at me, watching me closely. “Shut up,” I grumble at her.

  Me: I need to take it slow. Is that all right with you?

  Him: I’ll go as slow as you need to go, and do whatever you need to do.

  My heart sighs.

  Me: Okay.

  Him: Are you coming back?

  Me: Do you want me to?

  Him: Yes, please.

  Me: When do you get off work?

  Him: Not sure. But I hope you’ll be there when I get there.

  Me: I’ll be there.

  Him: I left a key for you over the door.

  Me: Wait. How did you put a key over the door?

  Him: I got mad skills.

  I chuckle.

  Me: See you later.

  Him: Looking forward to it.

  I look up to find Peck grinning at me. “He’s going to get you through it.”

  “Through what?”

  She stares hard at me. “You know what.”

  Yeah, I do know what. I just wish I didn’t.

  Josh

  I just made some motherfucking amazing nipples. They look so real that I want to bend my head and take one into my mouth. “What do you think?” I ask Logan as I set my machine to the side. He has stayed in the room with me this whole time, because he’s done a shit ton of these things and I was so nervous that my hand was shaking when I first started.

  Logan smiles at the woman, who had a double mastectomy two years ago. “I think they look perfectly kissable.”

  Her cheeks flush, but she’s smiling.

  “Your husband is going to be so surprised.”

  “I may never put a shirt on again,” she says, beaming, but she pulls her shirt down over her head anyway. “It’s almost a shame to cover them up.” She leans over and throws her arms around my neck, her eyes getting bright and shiny. “Thank you,” she whispers.

  She follows Friday to the front of the shop, but Friday doesn’t let her pay. They hug and talk for a minute and then the woman leaves.

  Friday saunters toward the back of the shop, her high heels clicking on the floor. “We’ll be sure you’re paid for your time,” she tells me. “I know you weren’t planning to work for free.”