Quirks & Kinks (25 page)

Easie and I glanced at one another, and it was clear from the downright threat in her eyes that it was up to me to be our spokesperson. We’d settled into one another fairly well, spending most of our time together, but doing it on my schedule.

I was still a truth-withholding, selfish asshole. But I couldn’t help it. I’d grown to like our bubble. I’d even go as far as saying that I’d started to
need
it.

Easie was the only thing that was all mine. But Evan’s drive was the only thing giving me purpose. I was afraid to rock the boat.

I know. It was fucked up.

“Yes,” I confirmed, turning to Larry and squeezing Easie’s hand in support. “We’re together.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Larry groaned, rolling his head back and slamming his hands on the table at the same time. “Great. Just what we fucking need.”

“Um,” Easie cut in, leaning forward with a gleam in her eye. “Just what the hell is the big deal about us being together? It’s not like we’re inviting you in for a threesome.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely not,” I interjected, just in case there was any doubt. I wasn’t exactly keen to share, and Larry’s connection to Ashley gave the whole avoidance thing an added incestuous incentive.

“The problem isn’t in the fact that you’re together. It’s that with getting together comes the unavoidable breaking apart.” He rubbed desperately at his wrinkling forehead. “That’s the fucking explosion I’d like to avoid.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Easie argued, starting to really get agitated. “We’re not you and Ashley.”

I raised my eyebrows and held my breath. I didn’t think it was a good idea to poke the bear’s most sensitive spot without a loaded gun in our hands.

“No, but the two of you share fucking genes.” His eyes came directly to me. “Look out, dude. Shrapnel fucking everywhere.”

I sucked into myself, making like I was invisible and trying not to get myself in trouble by taking anyone’s side. Agreeing with Larry in this instance could only end badly, but Larry was kind of in charge of paying me. Switzerland looked good this time of year.

“Maybe it’s you who’s the problem!” Easie yelled, jumping up in a fit of sibling indignation.

“Easie,” I coaxed softly, trying to calm her down without putting myself into the line of fire.

Larry just choked on a laugh. “Trust me,” he addressed both of us. “The two of you look even more dysfunctional than normal. Ka-BOOM!”

“We’re fine!”

“Right. Just don’t get your figurative guts all over the set, if you catch my drift.”

“I’m a goddamn professional!” Easie yelled, pretty much discrediting her statement instantly.

One choked snort sniffled out of Larry’s nose.

With that, he shoved back from his chair, leaving behind our scripts as he stepped out of the room.

“Can you believe him?” Easie railed, spewing fire and looking seriously gorgeous the whole time she did. When I stayed silent, she appealed to me louder. “Well, can you?!”

“Easie,” I said softly, gesturing to her wild hair and aggressive stance without making a move from my relaxed sitting position.

She surveyed herself briefly. Untamed hair gave way to flushed cheeks, and the line of her body clearly said she meant to
fuck some people up.
If she wasn’t five foot nothing, it probably would have been extremely threatening.

“Shit.”

“Easie,” I murmured through a chuckle.

She sank her head into her hands and squeezed at her forehead with the tips of her fingers.

“I’m a fucking mess!” she mumble-yelled into her hands. Her head jerked up and her panicked eyes met mine. “He’s right. I’m gonna get guts all over everything!”

“Hey,” I called softly, chuckling. Standing, I pulled her into my arms and wrapped her up tight, whispering into her tiny ear. “You’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“We’re not gonna explode.”

“Okay,” she whispered, surrendering to it and trusting me completely.

I closed my eyes tight and inhaled her sweet hair.

And prayed to God and Jesus both that I wasn’t lying. Because when she’d gotten upset, this time, she’d turned to me to calm her down.

Not a cigarette.

When I first read that the show today was about a couple with Psychrophilia, or the arousal to being cold and watching others be cold, I couldn’t see an outcome where this would be good for me.

When I’m cold I get cranky and all the things that I like to be big tend to get smaller. But, in a nice twist of reenactment fate, we were only pretending to be cold—or doing the exact opposite of what swimsuit models do in beach shoots.

In reality, the heat was cranked to eighty-five, both in room temperature and Easie’s hotness factor, and the ice bed we were laying on was plexiglass.

She had managed to trick her lithe body into feeling cold though, and goosebumps had formed up and down the length of her normally smooth arms. Each time the set assistant sprayed her knees and my back with a spritz of water to mimic melting ice, her nipples pebbled further and her body pushed even closer.

She was searching for warmth, and lucky for me, I just happened to be radiating it.

Between her plump lips sat an ice cube, and she moved it from one sensitive spot to the next, getting me colder and colder by the minute.

They’d done her makeup to make her lips look just the slightest bit blue, and I had to fight the urge to be worried. I knew it was fake, but your brain plays tricks on you when it’s someone you care about.

Refocusing, I went back to Noah, the man I was portraying, and tried my hardest to slip into the place that came from deep in his mind.

I moved my breath slower, savoring her every touch and watching as my nipples peaked and played their part. She didn’t miss it either, working the flesh slower and trying to control the widening of her eyes.

It was a strange kind of beautiful to have this kind of job with your new girlfriend, practically every scene introducing something to our intimate relationship and not at the same time.

We hadn’t explored much in our personal encounters, and I was perfectly content not to. Some might describe it as vanilla, but Easie tasted more like any and every other flavor under the rainbow. Salty and sweet, she gave herself in a different and delightful way every time.

When and if she wanted to explore, I’d oblige. But until then, working on this show together was like living a strange double life.

“I give up!” Easie screamed, slamming her butt back onto the heels of her feet and breaking the scene.

Howie looked from her to me and back again, waving off all of the lurking and curious onlookers as he did. Easie, however, didn’t look anywhere but at me.

“What are you into?”

Her hair seemed to grow in disarray with each second her pleading question went unanswered. I searched her face for clues, but I couldn’t seem to figure out what she was asking me. Her every nuance said that she’d been stewing on this for a while, but for me, it was purely out of the blue.

“What parts of
this
you are real?”

Confusion clouded the link between my vocal chords and my vocabulary, so all that came out was a grunted, “Huh?”

“This version. Of you,” she stuttered to explain. “I can’t tell where you stop and where your role on this show begins—what’s underneath all of these layers.”

Howie busied himself with nonexistent tasks, but I knew he was listening—and I was sure he wasn’t the only one.

Lowering my voice to barely a whisper, I tried to get to the bottom of her random rant. “Baby, what in the hell are you talking about?”

“This. You. On the show.”

“I need more words, Easie.”

Her eyes turned mean, and I could practically feel the sting of her phantom fingers on my cheek. She was right on the edge of irritation, just itching to make me feel it with her.

“You just seem so into . . . I don’t know . . .
everything.
”

“Everything? That seems like a pretty broad statement.”

“Everything we do here. You very clearly enjoy it,” she huffed. “But at home, we don’t do anything out of the ordinary.” She coughed. Cleared her throat. “I’m just . . . I don’t know what you’re
into.
”

Jesus. She was worried she wasn’t enough for me. Crazy girl.

“You.”

“What?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m into
you.
Slow sex, fast sex, red sex, blue sex. If it’s with you, I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it.”

“Red sex? Is that period sex? Are you a Blood Hound?” Her words ran together with her speedy delivery, and she looked like she was going to cry. “God, I knew it.”

“Um, no,” I laughed, shaking my head and looking up to find a smirking Howie not even pretending to work anymore.

Jesus. Nothing was private. I guess I could thank Easie for that one in this instance though.

“I was just kind of Dr. Seuss-ing it. You know, improvising?”

“I don’t think Dr. Seuss would approve of the context.”

“Hey,” I said. “You’ve got to use what you’ve got. And all I’ve got up my sleeve is the Seuss.”

“So you don’t want me to wear a bear costume and growl through my orgasm?”

Howie laughed out loud, one sharp burst that cut through the air and made Easie notice we weren’t alone for the very first time. Her cheeks turned a magenta shade of pink, but she didn’t take off running or curl up in the corner.

I shook my head to enforce and validate my verbal answer. “No.”

“But you seem so into—”

“I guess I’m a decent actor then,” I told her honestly. “If you want to try something, I’m down. I always will be. Otherwise, all the fetishes and kinks you see here are just a part of the job.”

“But you’re so openminded.”

“Being openminded to other people’s wants and needs doesn’t make them my own. If I have something outside of the box, I’ve yet to find it.” I grabbed her hips and pulled her close, whispering in her ear with a smile on my face. “If you’re really set on me being into something weird, I guess you’ll just have to help me search.”

“GOD, THAT FEELS GOOD.”

“Oh yeah?”

Laughter bubbled out of my chest. “Don’t get too excited. I don’t think this really counts as a fetish.”

“It totally does,” she argued. “I looked it up on Google.”

“Uhhh,” I grunted, just barely stopping my eyes from rolling back into the recesses of my head. “You sat and Googled fetishes?”

“Yeah.”

“Good Christ, I would have loved to see that.”

“Stop talking and enjoy the spoils,” she commanded.

“I still can’t believe fingernail scratching is the fetish you came up with. You wanted to start easy, huh?” I teased.

It cost me. “Ow!”

“Whoops,” she faked. “I must have slipped.”

“Is this gonna turn into a good blow job? Or are we just going for a different kind of experimentation in torture?” She was tickling the area with fervor and giving me brief flashes of her neighboring tongue. Too much more of this, and it would have to lead to death. There was just no other option.

“Is there really such a thing as a bad blow job?” she asked, swinging her loose hair over her shoulder and running the tips of her fingers up, down, around, and anywhere she could to make me squirm.

I tried to keep the pitch of my voice even as I answered. “What? You think mouth on penis equals good?”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

I shrugged and tried to push my cock toward her mouth. Some men liked to say there was more to it, that there was such a thing as a bad blow job. But I didn’t believe it. As long as a woman was into it, putting in the effort to satisfy you any way she knew how, that was all that mattered. It was pretty hard to find fault in a place that was wet and hot and lent itself to making a woman’s eyes look wide and willing and wondrous.

I sure couldn’t anyway.

“You’re right. Your mouth on my penis equals good no matter how I slice it.”

“Too bad that’s not part of the plan then.”

I might have whimpered.

“Relax,” she laughed. “It’s not part of the plan because I had something different in mind.”

“Oooh, Oh, Oh,” I said, sitting up like a dog and pretending to beg. “Tell me it’s your ass in the air, knees in the bed, and my cock driving into you from behind.”