“That’s just the timer.”
But there’s something else that makes me jump out of my skin: the angry crash of metal, and the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.
“We have to call the police,” I say. My tank top is on backwards and I didn’t even bother with pants, just threw on James’s leather jacket.
James’s bike is smooshed like a great big metallic fly against the brick alley wall.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” I hold my arms out at Exhibit A and B. “This wasn’t an accident. How many people crash into a parked bike in a one way alley and then just
back up
?”
He’s shirtless and his jeans are unbuttoned. He just paces angrily with arms crossed over his chest. In the dark, I can’t see the brilliant green of his eyes, but I can still taste him on my lips and feel him on my skin. It’s something even the rain can’t wash away. Something that’s attached itself inside me, the same thing that makes me ache for him.
I try to think why in the world he wouldn’t report this. There’s no damage to the restaurant, so I have no reason to, either. I replay the last few day’s events. How he didn’t show for work. The fight with his brother. Could he have done this? No… that doesn’t make sense.
“Do you know who did this?” I ask. There’s no reason to sugar coat it.
James nods.
“How bad is it?” I’ve been round people who’ve been in trouble before. Rich kids from high school who sold drugs and got off because of expensive lawyers. Girls who set their cheating boyfriend’s things on fire and got held for the night. The worst was a bouncer at of my bars who had a gambling problem and went on the run from collectors after they beat him to a pulp.
I don’t think it’s the same with James. But maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong many times before. I try not to think of Clarissa Adams’s words, the photo stashed in my room that’s burning in my conscience. I’m still elated from the orgasm he just gave me. How bad could he be? Then again, the nice boys almost never make you come, so maybe James is pretty bad.
“James?”
“I can’t, okay?” He shouts. “I can’t fucking tell you.”
And just like that, it changes. The soft warm feelings I was just having are set on fire by anger.
“If you want to be involved in things that get your shiny toys broken, then go ahead. But don’t you fucking dare bring this into this restaurant. Oh, wait, you already did!”
I shove him, but he doesn’t budge. He turns and lowers his face to mine. “It’s none of your business, Lucky.”
“Well, too late. I need you to tell me, James.”
He turns away again. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Don’t tell me what I know. I know that from the moment I met you you’ve been putting up this front. This playboy-wannabe celebrity chef on the verge of greatness. You think that being in the paper or attached to my mom is the answer to all your problems? I’m already there and it doesn’t do shit for me. You don’t have to tell me everything, but I’m going to need some explanation. Something…”
He shakes his head. Rain comes down harder. It’s the thunderstorm we were promised all day. James is almost as stubborn as I am, and that’s saying something. At least I can admit that. I reach out to touch his shoulders, my insides twisting because I don’t know how he’s going to react. His body shudders in a sigh.
“I’m not a playboy,” he whispers. “You’re the first in months…”
“How many months?”
He shrugs. “Six.”
I smile, willing him to turn around and face me. “Me too.”
He turns so fast, I gasp and lose my balance. James catches me and presses me against the brick wall. “We really shouldn’t have done that.”
I shrug, holding his brilliant green eyes with mine. “I’m not sorry. Are you?”
“Not one bit.” He takes a lock of my wet hair and traces it between his fingers. “You shouldn’t like me.”
“You shouldn’t like
me
,” I counter. “I’m a mess.”
“Then we’ve got something in common.” James kisses me, and unlike all the other kisses, this one is ravenous, aching, hard. His bite stings my lips, but his tongue licks away the pain. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my breasts to his chest. I slip the jacket off my shoulder. He tugs on my tank top, this time ripping it in half, my nipples hard in the rain. He’s already unbuttoned and commando. Oh the joys of rushing out of a building half dressed.
I moan as he lifts me up and pins me to the wall with his weight. I wrap my arms around his waist for support. He presses his rock hard shaft against the thin wet cloth of my thong.
“Is this okay?” he whispers in my ear, reaching for something in his back pocket.
I want to scream yes. It’s better than okay. My lips are numb against his but I can’t stop kissing him. He fumbles with his condom so I take over. With my legs wrapped around his hips, I tug on the rubber snugly down his shaft. He lifts me up and I stop myself from crying out as I feel the tip slide inside me.
“Oh, Lucky…” He burrows into my wet hair, hands grabbing every part of me he can. “You feel so good.”
I lose it when he enters me. My insides constrict as he slides further and further inside of me. His face is in the arc of my neck and my shoulder.
“Fuck, you feel so good.”
I squeeze him with my thighs, the pressure coiling in my abdomen like a spring. He moves harder and faster, and no matter what just happened, the crash, the rain, the secrets he’s hiding, I just want James inside of me forever.
I can feel his grunt loudly, his big muscular body shaking against mine. He presses inside me hard, fixing his lips against mine. His grunt is so sexy that it tips me over the edge. My core spasms around him in delicious waves.
Breathing heavy, drenched in rain, James kisses my face. Every inch of it. In the dark of the alley, I feel a new thrill in being pressed up against his body. He pulls out slowly, and sets me gingerly on the ground. He snaps the condom off and chucks it in the dented garbage bin.
“Come on,” he says, cupping my ass and as we head back into the warmth of The Star’s kitchen. “Let’s have some cake.”
When we were done being lusty and pulled a slightly burned cake out of the oven, James called a friend who owns an auto shop. Gadget, 6’5” and thin as a lamp post, shows up ready to tow James’s dented Fatboy without even asking why. When he sees James’s ride he whistles long and hard, like his heart is breaking. He shakes my hand and gives me a t-shirt that says “Gadget’s Auto Shop” with an animated car mid-race.
“Is this a thing?” I ask James in the cab. The cake is on a dish I borrowed from the restaurant. There’s no way I’m letting this bad boy go to waste. The cake,
and
James. “Friends bailing you out of stuff?”
James slings his arm around my shoulder and we take a familiar turn down the road. “Define stuff.”
I shrug, my wet hair dampening his matching t-shirt. “Not getting arrested after bashing a dude’s face in. The no-questions-asked pick-up of damaged property. I’m just trying to figure out what’s next.”
He dips his finger in the frosting and scoops it into his mouth. He shuts his eyes and a pleased smile spreads across his face.
Delicious.
Okay, I get it. He uses sex to avoid answering my questions. I don’t mind. But sooner or later, I’m going to figure him out. Once we’re in his apartment, I feel a wave of exhaustion overcome me. I realize I should have gone home. I set the cake on the polished breakfast bar and eye the door. It’s like he can sense my indecision. James corners me in the kitchen.
“Thinking of running away?”
I brace myself on the ledge behind me, tilting my chin up to his face. “That’s what I’m known for, you said so yourself.”
“Stop,” he says softly, caressing my cheek with his lips. “I’m sorry I said that.”
“Because we did the whole judging thing?”
He nods. My senses are as frazzled as my hair. It’s like getting electrocuted every time he touches my skin. The sensation is so strong that it hurts. I’ve always wondered why I haven’t had this connection with other guys. I either cared too little or not at all. With James, I see him as this great big box in muscular wrapping paper and shimmery sea-green bows. I want to rip it all off and see what’s inside. That, and my curiosity combined with the giant question mark of his actions, is a very dangerous pull.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asks, brushing my face.
I shrug. “It’s always nice to be reminded.”
“I mean it, Lucky.”
I know he does. It’s not like I’m not confident about myself. I have my mother’s eyes, gray and stormy. My hair is long and dark, and for the most part I keep it wild and finger combed. Thankfully, my metabolism keeps all of my junk food away from my waist and packs it into my ass, something that all guys like. I wouldn’t kick me out of bed, but I haven’t won a modeling contest since I was eight. Despite all of that confidence, it’s intoxicating to listen to the compliments come from James’s mouth.
I duck out from under his arms and stand in the middle of his kitchen. “What’s beautiful about me?”
“Your eyes,” he says without hesitation. “I love how the corners crinkle when you’re trying not to laugh. How they turn dark when you’re pissed at me.” He steps closer to me. “How you always seem to be looking elsewhere. It’s like your mind and your body are in separate places.”
“You think that’s beautiful?” I cross my arms and raise a questioning brow.
He nods, placing a firm hand on my hips and gently ushering me out of the kitchen. I step on his feet and it doesn’t stop him from taking on my weight. “It’s different. I can’t get a read on you. Not in a hot or cold way. More in a
what is she thinking
kind of way. I want to know what you’re thinking. So far, I’ve been wrong.”
I accept his kiss. It’s tender and sweet and you know what—I’ve been wrong too. I just can’t admit it the way he can. Instead I let myself fall on the plush bed behind us. Already the covers smell like him. I want to search through his bathroom cabinet to find his cologne and douse myself in it.
“So you don’t think I’m a spoiled brat anymore?”
He hovers over me, his weight putting pressure on my chest. Sea-green eyes are fixed on mine. “I still think you’re a brat.”
I press my hand on his chest to push him off me. “What the fuck, why?”
He laughs. It occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve heard him laugh like this. It makes him look younger, and unburdened, a 180 of where we were an hour ago. “Case and point.”
“Double standard.”
“How?”
“If getting the things I want is bratty, then what does that make you? You have to be right all the time, because you’re you—”
His eyes go wide with mock-surprise. “Because I’m
me
? Wow…”
“But because you’re a guy you’re allowed to want it all. If you don’t get it all then you’re just
determined
. If I don’t get it all, then I’m a brat.”
He bites his lip. Then tackles me onto the mattress, a girlish shriek coming from my lips as James covers my face with his kisses. “I
told
you. You’re beautiful. Just by being different than any girl I’ve ever met.”
“Wow,” I say. “I deserve like a James Hughes award.”
His face is startled for a moment. I can’t get a hold of what pisses him off. Somehow, I think it’s when I say his whole name that he gets this shock on his face.
“Listen, you’re the one who labeled me as a playboy.” He leans back on the headboard with his arms crossed behind his head. He closes his eyes and rests comfortably.
For the first time I pay attention to the room we’re in instead of James’s sexy figure. It’s still bare except two photos. The first one of his mother, and then a second of James, his brother, a girl my age who I presume is their sister, and a little baby girl. All four have the same startling green eyes. The sister has jet-black hair, but the ends are bleached white. She’s got a sparkling piercing on her nose that somehow makes her face even more radiant.
His brother is the only one who isn’t smiling. It’s more of a grin, like the person taking the picture was egging him on to say
cheese
and he just wouldn’t do it. In his arms is a toddler who pulls on the gold chain tucked under his shirt. She’s a redhead. It’s candid, and loud, and there’s so much history there. They’re beautiful, and no matter how angry James’s brother was coming out of here earlier, I can tell they love each other.
James sees me looking and pulls me back to him. “Come here.”
I lay down across the bed facing him, propped up on my elbow. I love the way he watches my legs stretch on his comforter. “The very first time I met you, you were holding up the line, hitting on a girl.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “If I’d seen you first, I would have hit on you instead.”
I smack his thigh, but he just grins at how easy it is to get a reaction from me.
“It was a weird day. I’d just gotten some news—”
“Bad news?”
He nods, but I can see he’s not going to budge from that. “I just needed a distraction. And some sugar, which I never got.”
“Oh please,” I roll my eyes. “I’m sure she gave you a new coffee right away.”
His smile is a devilish smirk. “You were wrong, you know. You said you were doing that girl a favor, but you actually did me a favor.”
I turn my face so I give him my cheek. I keep my face cool and collected, but my insides are mush. “You’re okay, I guess.”
“Come here,” he says.
“Why?”
“Why is everything like pulling teeth with you?” he grunts playfully.
“It’s not,” I say. “Not everything. I let you go down on me pretty easily.”
“Oh! It’s like that?” When his lips turn into a delicious pout, I resign myself to what I want. I want to be in James’s arms. I want that more than I want cake, which is pretty desperately. I get in his nook, right where his shoulder and neck make the perfect pillow for my damp hair. I shut my eyes and take deep pleasure in this feeling. Comfort. Warmth. What more can you ask for in a person? I don’t know what I’m asking of James, not just yet, but whatever this is, I like it, and that terrifies me in an entirely new way.