Topped (11 page)

Why else would he sleep with me? I thought we’d hit it off, but he sure looks like he’s hitting it off with everyone here.

It loops, these awful feelings, until I can’t separate my hatred and revulsion from my lust and intrigue. He’s wormed his way under my skin, like a tiny dinosaur parasite.

It doesn’t help that every time I change rooms, he’s there in the hallway, staring at me while he’s signing books and laughing with other authors. While he’s shaking hands with editors and discussing publishing potentials, not that I would ever eavesdrop on the likes of him. Did I mention I’m a liar?

Our eyes lock every time, and heat sears through me, and my panties dampen, and all I can think about is what it’s like to be completely swept up in the tidal wave that is sex with Joe. And then I begin to wonder…can I separate him from Charlie? Can I treat them as two different people so I don’t feel so badly about the entire fiasco?

Zounds. It might be the only way. And it just might work. I need to figure out
something
. I’m wasting my precious time at the conference and losing my freaking head over a dick, something that I
never
expected to happen. I’m not that kind of girl!

I’m the cry-over-wine-and-words kind of girl!

Fucking Charlie Shivers. God, I hate him so much. I’m desperate to hate-sex his body again.

The rest of the day fades into a blur of twisted thoughts, and before I know it, I’m back at home with a bottle of wine and Facebook pulled up on my phone. I know what I have to do, I just don’t know if I have the guts to do it.

I polish off the glass and resign myself to this fate. This is the river I’m floating down. I may as well make the most of it.

I go to the one place I swore I’d never go—Charlie Shivers’ Facebook page. God, his fans are just as deranged as he is. My author page doesn’t have nearly this much interaction on it! How is this even freaking possible? And also, should I be worried that this many people not only read, but
enjoyed
reading about sex with sentient objects?

Time to banish those thoughts. I’m on a mission. I click on the message button and sigh. It’s now or never. Either I do this now and regret it, or have different regrets for not doing it. #loselosesituation

“Purge time,” I tell myself and pour another glass of wine.

We should hate-fuck one last time and then never speak again. I can’t stand your face.

I finish off the glass and walk away from my phone to keep from compulsively checking it. I hope to god he doesn’t have an assistant checking this shit. Oh, god, could he really be so successful he has an assistant? Should
I
get an assistant?

I finish the second glass of wine and lament over how I’m turning into a catastrophic mess. No, worse. I’m turning into my mother. A minute later, my phone beeps. A response from the enemy.

If we must. Dress as Trump.

I stare at this for a good five minutes. Come dressed…to fuck…as Trump? Like…
Donald
Trump? Melania? There’s no way he could actually mean
the
Donald Trump.

Could he?

He
is
into bizarre shit, just as I suspected earlier. No one normal could write those books.

I…I don’t know what to do. That’s completing disgusting, not to mention thoroughly degrading.

But…okay. What if I’m missing out on something? What if kink is really worth all the hullaballoo people make of it? I mean, there is clearly something to his success. What if I just don’t understand it because I’ve never experienced it? I mean, I never knew I was into hate-banging before, either.

Wait, am I seriously considering...?

I need to borrow one of your husband’s suits. And a red tie,
I text Jane, feeling sad and confused and horny. My life is in absolute tatters.

For the masquerade ball?
is her response.

Um. Sure. For the masquerade ball. Ahem.
I need it tonight
.

Jane drops it off moments later, questions populating her face. I wave her off and promise details later and retreat to my room, still unsure of what I’m actually doing. I get dressed and lament that I didn’t just go with
Melania
Trump. Why would he want me dressed as a man?

Whatever. I’m committed. I smear self-tanner all over my face and try not to cry. Next, I pull out all the loose hair from my hairbrush and clump it together. I bobby-pin it to my head to mimic his awful haircut and stare at myself in the mirror.

This is the worst thing I have ever done.
I mean, textbook fucked up. I pull out my list of things to work on. After street team, newsletter, and foreign translator, I add “therapist.”

But if there is one thing I know about Charlie Shivers/JoeM, it’s that he knows how to make me come. If fucking Donald Trump makes him work that much harder, so be it. Anyway, it’s our last time. So whatever. May as well go big before I go home?

I grab a large sunhat and a pair of sunglasses as a disguise and drive downtown, convincing myself the whole time that this is just a lark. Research for the tell-all I can write later called
My Affair with a Dino-Porn Author.

I wonder if
that
would get me an agent.

T
he girl wants me
. I actually wasn’t totally sure. She’s been making eyes at me all day, but they looked like the sort of eyes that shoot laser beams, not sex. I truly didn’t expect to get a message from her on Facebook, but I can’t say I’m surprised.

Joe McCoy, Sex God. Remember? I’m super glad I didn’t show up at her house now. I could have ruined the whole thing.

I go into Sex Prep mode, showering and cologne-ing and throwing all the dirty clothes in my room into an empty drawer in the dresser. At home, I’d light candles, but I don’t have any here. I’m sure I’d just end up setting off a fire alarm in the process, and I’ve already had enough spectators in my sexual activities for one week.

Not that it wasn’t hot, because it totally was, but because that tease Miranda jumped off before I could finish. Which was completely uncool of her. My plan for tonight is to get her absolutely hot and bothered and then leave her wanting. #payback

Honestly, it wouldn’t have even taken a revenge plot for me to agree. The girl is killer. She’s beautiful, smart, engaging, and amazing in bed. I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since I finished reading her book yesterday. Or really at all, since we met in the bar and she rocked my world subsequently after.

Decision: I’m willing to overlook her role as Randi Rose if it promises more hot sex.

Look, I’m conflicted, but the facts are the facts. And Miranda has wormed herself into my brain. I tried to talk to her all day today but kept getting stopped before I made it to her. I’m not going to complain—it looks like
Space Butts Seeking Dinosaurs
is going to Germany!—and I love the shit out of my fans, but I really wanted to talk to her.

I don’t know that I could ever admit to reading one of her books, and I don’t know that I could admit to thinking she’s pretty awesome, but it didn’t stop me from at least
trying
.

I think the thing to do is just pretend she’s two different people. Miranda the sexpot and all-around cool chick, and Randi the one I prefer not be named.

And now she wants a hate-fuck. God, I love a good hate-fuck. But how to tell her I don’t actually hate her? Or that if she wants anger-sex, she needs to be Randi and not Miranda? See, this is where the complications just turn into weird feelings. This is why I prefer to date my career.

Feelings are super overrated. And I’m feeling entirely too many of them lately.

Still, I’m looking forward to another romp. Maybe I can convince her to revisit the topic of “one last time.” She wants me at least for this, so perhaps I can broach the subject of using each other for anger-sex whenever we’ve had a bad week. In perpetuity.

Do I want to do this after the conference? I think so. Maybe. Look, I don’t want to get bogged down in those awkward details.

Joe McCoy, Detail Avoider.

Room set, I head down to the hotel bar to wait for my hot date. I’m picturing her showing up in a slinky number, hair done up, high heels. Something really sexy. It’ll be even hotter tearing it all off. I’m head-deep in this fantasy, tight pants getting tighter by the second, when I nearly spew my whiskey, neat, all over the bar top.

What I first thought was a Trump impersonator turns out to be Miranda. Oh my god.

I can’t contain myself. This is the funniest goddamn thing I have ever seen in my life. She’s got the hair, the suit, the orange face! Oh my god, she actually took me seriously. She literally dressed as Trump. Shut the fuck up. My sides are about to explode when she walks up to me with a sultry smile mixed with sheer hatred beaming from her eyes.

“Well?” She does a spin and stares at me.

My eyes are starting to water, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold in this laughter. It’s threatening to split me in two. I mean, you guys,
she fucking dressed up like Donald Trump
. Her face is orange! Orange! I open my mouth to say hi and have to clamp my hands over my mouth.

“What’s wrong?” she asks and suddenly has that deer-in-headlights look going for her, which, when mingled with the whole Donald Trump thing, is motherfucking hysterical. But I feel bad for her, because Christ on a bicycle…

Did I mention my date is dressed as Donald Trump?

“Excuse me a minute,” I manage and rush to the men’s room. As soon as I’m inside the safety of the stalls, I allow myself to laugh until I can’t breathe. Tears stream down my face and the most ridiculous sound comes from my lips. I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in…god, who knows. Since Rush Week in college maybe? Years, okay?
Years
.

Deep breaths, man. Deeeeep breaths.

I didn’t think she’d actually do it! I didn’t think she’d actually dress the part for sex. Oh my god.

I am so impressed with her right now. This negates at least four of her nasty reviews.

I finally calm down to a place where the image of her in the suit only pulls a smile, and I splash water on my face to cool down. I can’t leave her out there forever, especially looking like that. She’ll die of embarrassment. She’s like a delicate little flower that I want to pot and protect and…anyway.

I head back to the bar and find her sipping wine, buried in large glasses and a sunhat like some sort of Carmen Sandiego disguise, which is hilarious because she’s wearing a suit. She sticks out like a sore thumb, poor thing.

Okay, I need to figure out how to play this whole Trump scenario, because I really don’t want to fuck a racist presidential candidate. But all my mind keeps shooting back is the opportunity to be honest with her. What the fuck, self? My life is so weird right now.

She’s doing weird, weird things to me.

Note to self: kill off a character named Miranda in my next book. Serves her right for doing this to me.

I take several more deep breaths and rejoin her at the bar. “I’m sorry,” I say. And then I falter, because honesty is stupid and hard. Fuck all these feelings I have. I gesture to the red tie, the rat’s-nest hair, the orange skin. “I don’t want this.”

Miranda’s deer-in-headlights look intensifies.

“I want you, Miranda,” I hurry in, before she flees. Her hand is already back on her purse. “The real you. I don’t want this cheap imitation. Truth be told, I was just fucking around and being an asshole. I didn’t think you’d actually…”

“Actually what?” Miranda fumes. “Didn’t actually think I’d go through with it?”

“Well, no.”

“Well, I did.”

“I see that.” I smile and put my hand over hers. “It was a stupid joke, and I’m sorry. I don’t need a mask to cover you up. The real you is so impressive. The real you is sexy and funny and alarmingly sharp-witted.” Oh my beer gods,
what am I saying
?

“The real you drives me up the goddamn wall, but I love it. You’re everything a guy could want, and I don’t want it masked behind some terrible fake tanner and a cheap suit.”

Miranda’s eyes water, like no one has ever said something like that to her before. Have they? Surely many men have. She’s gorgeous, talented, and bitchy! Everything a man could want! But then her eyes harden, and she narrows them at me.

“No.” Not what I expected.

“No?”

“You fuck me as Trump, or not at all.” She swallows back the full glass of pinot noir, and I have to smile. This girl can throw down some wine. It’s impressive. “I didn’t do this for nothing. Now do me like I’m a wildly unqualified presidential hopeful!”

I stare at her, open-mouthed. “Are you…like, are you being serious right now? Because I just said all these really nice things about you, and then you said you want me to do you like Trump, and I can’t even begin to tell you the levels on which that is fucking weird.”

“As Trump or not at all,” she repeats.

I roll this over in my head and take another sip of whiskey. I mean, I love good kink. I just don’t know that Donald fucking Trump is my idea of kink. I only picked the asshole because he was on television when I sent her the message. Why couldn’t it have been Olivia Wilde or something? Damn it, self.

As I look over at her, she starts undoing her top buttons, and I find myself absolutely captivated by this movement. And then I remember her amazing breasts hidden beneath those lapels and a freaking flag pin. My cock jumps.

It appears we are DTFT. Down to fuck Trump.

Words I never thought I’d ever utter in a million years, but hey—I’m a pretty open guy. And she really does make that suit look
good
. I can’t wait to bind her up with the tie and fuck that jacket right off her shoulders.

“Does this mean you’re going to be my ass-prentice?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows at her.

She looks me dead in the face and says, “The safe word is going to be ‘immigration,’ because you know I’ll stop it.”

And that’s when it hits me, harder than a dino dong.

I’m falling in love with this woman.

I throw a twenty on the bar and grab her hand. We make our way to the elevators silently, but she’s eye-fucking me the entire time, running her hands in and out of her suit. Is she drunk again? She drove all the way over here, so she’s got to be good, right?

I decide on that whole honesty thing again. Balls. “Are you drunk? Because I don’t want to do this if you are. It didn’t go so well the last time.”

She pins me to the elevator wall and bites my lower lip. She sucks on it before letting go, and it’s incredibly sexy. Even with the orange face. “No.”

Game. Fucking. On.

We barely make it to my room before we fall all over each other. Hands are flying, hair is pulling, clothing is disappearing. I manage to lock the door behind us before the clothes come flying off.

“Wait!” I stop her between kisses. “God, at least wash this stuff off your face. I’m going to get high off the fumes.”

“All or nothing,” she threatens.

I hedge my bets. “Then I take nothing.”

We become locked in a standoff for a full minute, chests heaving, sexual tension palpable, before she storms off to the bathroom and slams the door shut. I hear the water running for a few minutes, so I strip down to nothing and sprawl across the bed, my cock proudly displayed for her approval as soon as she opens the door.

A minute later, the door opens and out walks my sexy Miranda, clad in a suit hanging off her body and a fresh face.

“You look absolutely stunning.”

“I’m in a man’s suit.”

“You could wear a paper bag and I wouldn’t care.”

“You disgust me.”

“I hate you.”

We stare at each other again, and she begins to lick her lips. She appears to be at war with herself, and I wonder what made her message me after all. I’m not complaining, but she can’t seem to make up her mind about whether or not she wants me.

Wait, is this really a
hate
-fuck? Like, she actually hates me and not just the career stuff?

I guess I deserve it a little, but I don’t want her to hate me. These newfound feelings are rearing up and soften me to her. So I leave the bed, cross the room, and sweep her up in my arms, suit and all. I kiss her with everything I have in me. I kiss her how an amazing woman like her deserves to be kissed.

I kiss her like I love her. And she melts into me like no one has ever kissed her that way before. For a fleeting moment, I feel like we’re kindred spirits almost, two authors in a sea of authoring and emotions who just want to be loved.

Joe McCoy, Occasional Softy.

But not my dick. My shaft is as hard as a prehistoric rock. The way her lips move against mine, the way her tongue twists with my own, is driving me wild. I pick her up and lay her down on the bed, never breaking contact with her divine lips. We make out like our kisses are oxygen, like the only way to survive is to fall into one another.

I decide in that moment: I’m just going to go for it. This beautiful woman acts like no one has ever wanted her before. It’s total bullshit.
I
want her, and so I’ll show her.

I stand along the side of the bed and pull her up to her knees. “We should probably get you out of this very expensive suit before we soil it.”

“My friend’s husband would kill me,” she agrees.

I lift her off the bed and hold her tight, kissing her with a fiery intensity. And then, because I like to tease, I set her down and kiss along her collarbone, down her exposed chest and between her arching breasts, and drop to my knees before her. Her breath catches as I move for the button clasp on the pants, and I have to smile.

War all you want, sweets. You want me bad.

Gently, because I do actually know how much this suit costs (hey, I
used
to work at a real job,) I remove her pants and find myself staring at a lacy pair of boy shorts. I effing love lacy underwear. I will tell you again and again how much I love them. Even better, they are connected to thigh-high nylons. Pure sex. I press my face against her pelvis and lick her once over her panties. She whimpers and my cock leaps.

I slowly move back up her body, holding her gaze the whole time. I lick my lips. “The shirt stays on. That’s hot.”

“Not as hot as ISIS will be when I carpet bomb them,” she says, squinting, back in character, even without the self-tanner.

“I’m going to carpet bomb the shit out of you.” I pick her up and bite her shoulder. “And by that I mean bomb your…carpet…with my dick?” I should have thought that through better.

“Maybe you don’t talk,” she says.

She wiggles down and climbs onto the bed. She shakes her hair out, creepy floating hair tufts falling around her, and poses for me on the bed. She’s an absolute fucking vision in a button down and black lace.

I can’t take it anymore. I pounce on her, knocking her backwards, pinning her hands over her head. I kiss her again, letting her know exactly how I feel about her in that moment—that I want to spend forever with her just like this, fuck all the rules and the real world, just this forever. Where there is no Charlie Shivers and no Randi Rose, just Miranda and Joe, two people who desperately want to bang each other.

And then I remember my delicious thought from earlier. I yank off her tie and bind her hands together. She squirms and moans as I tighten the knot.