Candlemoth: A Holy City Romance (15 page)

“Thanks, I think.”

“You’ve got metal, that’s all I’m trying to say.  That other girl, maybe she’ll think twice before talking shit again, right?” 

I laughed.  “I don’t think reptiles do much thinking, but her muscle memory should keep her going in the right direction: way the fuck away from me!”

Casper was still laughing when we pulled up to my apartment.  As the car whispered up to the curb, he shot me a slow, questioning smile. 

“So...” he said.

“Good night, Casper.  Can’t say it hasn’t been an adventure,” I said.

He smirked, and then leaned towards the driver. “Can you hang a minute, buddy?  I’mma walk the lady up to her door.”

“Sure, man, whatever,” the driver said.

“Thanks,” I said to him, watching Casper slide the guy a five. 

“Well, it’s dark,” Casper said, chivalrously. 

It was unexpectedly strange for me as we walked together.  Casper was narrower and more rangy than Ry, and I realized that Ry felt-

just right. 

“So this is good night?” Casper said, his voice low and husky.  In the light from the street lamps, his eyelashes looked velvety and long. 

He really was very cute, I thought.  But not for me.

“Yes, thanks.”  I kissed him on the cheek and went inside.

My apartment felt silent, and strangely humid.  It seemed- lonely.  Funny how meeting the right guy can make everything else in your life feel wrong.  Without Ry around, everything felt unfinished, somehow.

I clicked on the TV to drown out the silence as I washed my face and got ready for bed. 

The familiar voices of Charleston’s nightly news anchors made a comfortable backdrop as I tried to force myself to unwind from the long, weird day.  But then something the female news anchor said made me turn down my running faucet.

“Well, here’s a shocker: looks like the Calhoun family is in trouble again-”

I darted out from the bathroom in time to catch a blurry photograph of Ry and his father rushing through the crowd on Folly Beach. 

You could see Casper and I standing behind them.  In the photograph, still wearing the beautifully sequinned golden pants from Chandler’s line, I was shielding my face with one bloody hand, while Madison curled away from us, looking scared and horrified. 

“Whoa, Ruby, what’s going on there?” the male anchor said, in his canned-sounding radio voice.

“Well, apparently, our mystery woman has ties to both the Calhouns and the music industry-”  As Ruby chattered on, lying through her teeth, a shaky iPhone video took over the screen, showing the fight, the kiss, everything.  Lastly, it showed me leaving the party with Casper.

Ruby covered her mouth coyly.  “Oh my.”

“She looks like a scandalous one,” the man agreed.  “Bad news for poor Ryland Calhoun.  So, anyone know who our mystery girl is?  Call in and talk to us at 843-500-5000-”

“You
dicks
!” I said to the screen. 

Yellow ticker tape began to scroll across the bottom: 
Topless Southern Belle Topples Casper Graham’s Heart- and Calhoun’s Political Career?

My heart went wild.

========== Chapter ================================

Well, that was just fucking awesome. 

I clicked off the TV, and then unplugged it too, just for good measure.  As if that could stop its toxic, warped stream in any way-

I rooted through my purse.  Steve would know what to say.  He’d know what to do, he always did-

but- shit! shit! shit!  My hand kept closing on empty space.  Old tubes of lipstick, balled up credit card receipts, a granola bar- somehow I’d lost my damn phone.  I felt a spike of pain run up my jaw and realized I was grinding my teeth.  Then I heard Steve’s voice in my mind. 

Just go on to bed, Lily.  Tomorrow’s a new day.

I knew you’d say that, dad.

When I walked into work the next day, Hazel stopped me with a huge grin.  “You left this at the bar, babe,” she said.

              “Oh, shit, thanks,” I said, in a grey voice.  “What are you so smiley about, miss lady sunshine?”

              “Oh… I don’t know…” Hazel shrugged in a big, ridiculously elaborate circle until I laughed in spite of myself. 

              “I love you, girl,” I said, hugging her.  “I’m having the shittiest morning.”

              “Oh yeah?  Don’t look now, gemstone, but I think maybe the worm has turned...” Hazel said, grinning even bigger.  I turned to follow her eyes. 

Ry was standing behind me, holding out a single lily. 

I squealed.  “For me!”

              “We didn’t have much of a goodbye last night,” Ry said, giving me the flower.  “So I wanted to give you a good morning.”

I went melty.  “Aw, Ry…”  I slipped the flower behind my ear and threw my arms around him.

              “You guys, Chef’s coming-” Hazel said.

              “We’ll be right back!”  Ry grabbed my hand and we darted outside.

              “Hey stranger,” he said to me softly, swirling me up in a kiss.  Standing there in the bushes, Ry’s mouth was hungry, insistent on mine.  My spine and the backs of my knees tingled and fizzed.  It was as if I were floating in sunstroke. 

Ry Calhoun made me delirious.  

I leaned back after a long moment, drinking him in.  Ry’s stubble was just long enough to be soft to the touch, and I ran my hand over his sculpted cheek, and then down onto his chest, moving my thumb slowly back and forth across his pecs.  “Mm... I gotta… I gotta go clock in,” I said, deliciously addled.  I tried to pull away from him, still dimly aware of my responsibilities inside. 

But I was on a fast boat leaving the shore.

              “I haven’t stopped tasting you in days,” Ry said, not listening.  He bent his head to one side and licked and sucked the side of my neck, drawing his fingers slowly through the underside of my hair. 

I lit on fire, swooning for him.

              “Are you
trying
to get me in trouble?”  I laughed.  “Mm- oh.”

He backed me into the wall, his hand slipping down between us, and reached between my legs.  He grabbed me.

“This is just a reminder,” Ry said, pulling me towards him, “that you can’t resist me.  Even when you want to.”

It was fireworks.  My body locked towards him, thrilled.

I laughed, smacking him playfully. 

“You’re an ass!” I sighed.

              Ry leaned his forehead against mine, swaying with me softly.  “I have to make you come again, Lily,” he said, softly.

              “Mm…”

His hand tightened.  I swooned.  “You’re mine, you belong to me,” he said, fiercely.

              “Oh yeah?”

              He scooped me up.  “Yes.”

              “Oh, shit!  Wait-”  But I let him carry me around the corner. 

To his car. 

“Ry, I can’t…”

              “Ten minutes,” he murmured, turning the ignition.  Soft music, blissful air conditioning, cool leather seats.

              “Oh, this is nice.”  The flesh is weak...

              Ry leaned over to kiss me, his hands in my hair, curling around the back of my head.  I felt that same strangely weightless feeling again. 

I put my hands over his.  “You are the most disorienting thing that has ever happened to me, Ryland Calhoun.”

He smiled at me, one hand curling down to the side of my neck, brushing against me lightly as if to feel the softness of my skin there.  “I wonder.  What’s going on behind those forget-me-not blue eyes?”

“I’m thinking… you are... inescapable!”

"Mm?  Maybe it’s time we had one of our… chats"

“Ry!  Not here!”

He’d slid down in his seat, his hands at my hips, putting his face dangerously towards my lap. 

“Try and stop me.  I know how wet you are...”  He popped the snaps on my black pants and slithered his fingers expertly between my legs.  “Oh, oh, Lily, my velvet,” Ry murmured.  “I have to-”

I was already snaking out of my pants.

“Little wiggle worm, I love it,” he purred, moving over me, his fingers driving deeper as he did so. 

My seat fell back like a boat come gently adrift, and Ry covered me deliciously.

I sighed again.  “Oh, oh Jesus.  You.”  I tangled my hands in his hair, pulling it gently.  I bit his sweet lips.  “You are heaven.”

I curled up beneath him, aware of his muscled arm between us as his fingers stroked and then began to pound and drive rhythmically.

“So, so silky wet,” he said, kissing my face, my hair.  “Lily, Lily, Lily.”

It was if he could ripen me by touch, shaping out the tender button inside me into a full, heavy fruit, ready to burst.  I bit my lips, radiating pleasure.

Raked light fell through the palm trees down into the car.  Humidity pressed at the windows like a curious touch- or was it our breath steaming the glass?  The BMW began to rock, and a soft wail built up low in my throat.  I tasted pennies behind my lips.  Ry kissed me harder, his tongue firm and searching.  As above, so below…

“I want you,” I said.  “Please, please.  I want you, I need you now.”  I reached for him desperately. 

That sweet look caught in his eyes again, warm and secretive. 

I fumbled his jeans free, crumpling them down to his knees, and I saw his adorable butt in the reflection of the glass above us.  His cock was humid, taut and hungry between us, and I cried out with desire as I took him in my hands, and drove him inside me.

Oh, shooting stars. 

The flare of his hood snagged perfectly at the lip of me.  As Ry throbbed- slow and deep and oh so hard- in and out, an exhilarating fullness spiraled higher through me- began to radiate out, in crashing waves, through my whole body.  I screamed, I cried, I curled around him.  He kept going.

“Higher, Lily,” he said, as if he could read my mind.  And maybe he could.  We were from the same secret country, after all.  I came again and again for him, until finally he jolted out of me and spasmed a hot rocket up past my shoulder. 

“Oh!” he said, startled, and then started laughing.  “Man, where’s a dog when you need one…”

We were in hysterics.  He fumbled around, trying to reach an old gym shirt in the seat behind us, and by the time he’d cleaned us up, we were panting for breath. 

“Oh wow, oh wow.”

“I’m like a slip-n-slide-” I giggled.

“The best ever,” Ry said, serious again.  His kiss was sweet and slow.  “Never let me go.”

I let my breath out slowly as reality crept back in.  “I have to go,” I said.

“No!” he said.

“To work!”

“I hate it,” Ry said, into my shoulder, and I kissed the top of his head. 

I wriggled under him. “Where are my pants?”

              “I’ll never, never let you get dressed again…”  He buried his face in my breasts, biting me, and need for him surged up again.  But then my eyes skated over the clock behind him.

“Holy shit. Oh, holy shit.  I’m so late.  They’re going to- sweetheart, I really have to, I’ve got to go right now-”

Ry must have read the panic in my eyes.  He let me up sweetly, helped me dress.  “I’m taking you out for dinner,” he said.  “When are you off?”  He slipped into the driver’s side and drove us around the building to the front door.

“5, I think,” I said, scooting out.

“Great, I’ll call you then.”

I stopped, my hand still on the door’s handle.  “Wait, you have my number?”  I couldn’t help grinning at him.  Obviously he did.  I’d caught him stalking.  But I loved it. 

We were obsessed with each other.  Oh, I wanted to talk to him about it- I wanted to talk to him about everything, to vine our bodies around each other for a month, and never leave the bedroom.

“I have everything,” Ry said, and winked.  “Miss you…”

My whole body was ringing, and the inside of my head felt smooth and polished as I staggered back into Divine Catering for the second time that morning. 

And I still hadn’t clocked in. 

The building was deceptive.  The reception area was sleek and open.  There was a front desk- usually empty, unless we had an appointment- and a dingie bell for unexpected arrivals.  There were some magazines, some chairs.  It seemed like a totally separate area from the catering office and kitchen area at the back of the building.  There were always people coming and going in the back- loading trays into vans, standing around smoking, gossiping, talking on their phones. 

But up front everything felt silent and empty, cut off from the hubbub that went on behind closed doors.  To clock in, you walked around reception, picked your card up off the wall and scanned it into the machine, and then went through the swinging door that led you towards the offices, and from there, the kitchen.