Submit (Songs of Submission) (3 page)

“Oh, come on,” Adam said. “Look at her. She’s smiling.”

“Kiss him! Kiss him!” I said.

He did, and it was such a lovely sight to see my friend happy that I had clench my hands to keep from clapping.

Adam finally pushed him away. “God, slut. You’re making me late.” He winked at me on the way out.

I knew I was smiling again. It was the uncontrollable type of grin that hurt my face.

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” he said.

“I don’t care. Are you going to tell me everything?”

He threw himself on the couch and turned off the TV. “We met in the Music House. He comes in all the time. I thought he was asking for me because of my expertise.”

“But it was your hot body.”

He threw a pillow at me. “Would you stop?”

I buried my face in the pillow. “I’m so happy. I worried about you all the time because you rarely went out with anyone.”

“I was confused, as they say. And Lord knows I couldn’t burden Gabby.”

I flung the pillow back at him. “Why didn’t you tell
me
?”

“We have a past. I didn’t want you to feel like I was… I don’t know, like I didn’t love you the right way.”

“You didn’t, you fucktard. Now you do, but then you didn’t. And why don’t you tell Gabby now?”

He sighed. “Adam’s last name is Marsillo. Which means nothing to you. But the CEO of Foundation Records? That’s her maiden name.”

“That’s his mother.”

“Gabby would know that,” he said, “and freak out. She’d start making marriage plans. He’s nice, but I’m not ready for her to start hovering.”

I looked away, fondling the crease in my jeans. Gabby would handle her brother’s homosexuality just fine, but he was right. Any connection to the music industry could send her spinning in either direction.

I jumped up and dropped into his lap, hugging him for all I was worth. I kissed his cheek.

He laughed and pushed me away. “Sorry, baby, you’re not my type.”

“I’m heartbroken.”

“Did you come here to snoop or did you have something to say?”

“I saw Kevin.”

“Uh oh?”

“Nothing like that. He wants to collaborate on a project. I’m totally stuck, and I thought if the three of us worked on it, I’d get unstuck, and we could be together again.” I looked at my watch and bounced to my feet. “But now I have no time to even discuss it. Are you coming tonight?”

“Adam and I have tickets.” He smiled. “Musical theater.”

“You’re a cliché.”

He shrugged. “Don’t tell Gabby yet. I don’t like this thing with Theo.”

“Why not?” I was annoyed that he’d deny her happiness just when he’d found his own.

“He deals scrips. He’s the last person she should be messing with.”

“How did I not know that?”

“You’re head hasn’t been in the game since you spent the night up in Griffith Park. Speaking of, did you see the pictures of you and Mister Gorgeous at the Eclipse show? They were all over the internet.”

“God, no.”

“Do you want me to pull them up? You look amazing.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to hear what anyone has to say about my life. Living it is hard enough.” I went to the door, but thought better of bolting out. I hugged Darren again and kissed his cheek. “I’m happy for you.”

He pushed me toward the door. I felt closer to him than I’d felt since we were in high school. “Get out of here,” he said. “Knock ’em dead or whatever.”

CHAPTER 3

At first, I wore the outfit least likely to land Jonathan’s dick inside me. My jeans were tight enough to cut the curve of my ass and accent the space between my skinny thighs, but so difficult to get off in a heat of passion that I’d have plenty of time to think about what I was doing and deny him access. I wore a bra with three hooks in back and a woven shirt that couldn’t be pulled over the head without unbuttoning it. I looked hot and physically inaccessible.

I realized that made me very easy to lie to, because I’d walk into the room, he’d make plans to remove my clothes, assess the difficulties and say whatever he had to in order to soothe my mind. I didn’t want that. I wanted the truth about what had happened between him and Jessica the night he dropped me at my house. I wanted it in all its ugliness and gritty detail. I wanted all the pain and all the hurt. I owned it for trusting him and for asking more of him than he could give, even though I’d been warned. If he hurt me enough, I wouldn’t make those mistakes again.

Despite the bruises that still stained the backs of my thighs, Jonathan wasn’t the kind of guy to revel in hurting me, at least not emotionally. I was going to have to pull it out of him, and my suit of armor wasn’t going to cut it. I had to weaken him. I had to make him tell me everything, even against his better judgment. I had to make him beg.

It was garter, then, and a dress with a flared bottom. I got aroused just putting on that outfit. I’d go to the studio in Burbank directly after, so I stuck a pair of spare undies in my bag and called myself done.

CHAPTER 4

As I stepped out of the elevator into the club’s lobby, a throbbing ache developed between my legs, and with each step down the hall, my snatch swung a little as if aware of the garter I wore under the skirt. The upcoming conversation was going to be very difficult if I didn’t get a handle on my sex drive.

I towered over Terry, the hostess, in four-inch heels. They made me about six feet tall, but I’d wanted to be looking Jonathan in the face. I needed to catch lies and half-truths before they dropped.

The room was a different one, smaller, with two sets of cocktail tables, and a leather loveseat and coffee table in the center of the room. He stood by the wall of windows, and when he looked at me, my heart stopped for half a beat. It was the work clothes, the charcoal suit, maroon tie, and the cufflinks. The glass of Perrier in his fingertips.

But when I got close, something had changed. His scent wasn’t the dry one I remembered, but something like sawdust, leather, and wet earth. The aroma was less beautiful, but sexier, and I felt the effects of it in the weight and wetness of my snatch and the tingle in my ass.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.”

The door closed behind me. I wanted to hold him, to forget everything. If I could only pretend Jessica hadn’t come into the bar, I would have wrapped myself around him. I stepped close to him, until we were eye to eye.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Flat water? I can get it without bubbles.”

“No, thanks.”

“I can order up some cookies.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Can you just tell me what she told you?”

“You’re all aquiver, Jonathan. What do you think she told me?” My tone was sharper than I’d intended.

He swirled the ice around in his glass. “Something that upset you.” He was going to dance around indefinitely. He was guarded and undoubtedly ready to be dishonest about something.

I had come prepared to make it very difficult for him. “Yes. She said something that upset me. A lot.” I hooked my finger in his waistband.

“Did she say you looked fat? She can be very catty.”

“Funny guy.” I pulled his belt from the loop, yanking the tongue from the metal hook. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want it answered in detail.” His belt fell open with a metallic clank. I took the glass from his hand and placed it on the table. His fingertips went for my face, but I pulled them away. “Hands at your sides.”

“You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I unzipped his pants. “I’m going to be on my knees. No touching.”

“Was there a question? You said there was a question.”

I dropped to my knees and rubbed his organ through his underwear, hardening it. I put my lips to it and breathed a hot breath, then rubbed my teeth through the cloth covering his growing stiffness. He groaned.

I pulled out his cock, the gorgeous thing, and licked the tip. “Are you ready for my question?”

“No.”

I put the head in my mouth to get it wet, sucking on the way out. “You stop talking, I stop sucking. Okay?” I looked up at him.

He reached for my hair, but I pushed his hand back.

“Okay,” he said, and I could hear the smile on his lips.

I gave the head another suck, then said, “Tell me where you went after you dropped me at my house and what happened there.”

“I don’t need a blowjob this bad, Monica.”

“I want your guard down, and I want your dick.” I slid my mouth all the way down then, lips dragging along the length of him, tongue following, my throat open. I let it feel the whole of me for a second before drawing it slowly out.

“God damn.” He reached for the back of my head, and I pulled his hand away again. “I’m tying your hands behind your back next time,” he said.

“You went which way on Vestal Street?”

“I’m just going to cut to it,” he said. “Jessica’s. I went to see Jessica.”

“An hour after we agreed to be exclusive?”

I didn’t want to look at him when he answered, so I took his dick in my mouth and worked it while he spoke.

“She texted me. She wanted to talk. I was always there for her because she was there for me. I didn’t see any harm in it. I didn’t think anything would happen.” He must have felt a hitch in my throat, because he added, “Wait. I don’t want to phrase it like that.”

“Phrase it any way you have to,” I said, stroking his dick with my hand. My saliva made it slick enough to work, and his sharp intake of breath told me he could slip up anytime. A drop of pre-come oozed from his red tip, and I caught it with my tongue. I licked down to the base, his skin paper thin against my tongue, and what I was looking for, the scent of another woman, was nowhere on him.

“Monica, I like you. I don’t want to—” He gasped as a tooth grazed his shaft.

“Speak. I can take it.”

“I didn’t fuck her. I don’t know what she said, but I’m not telling you anything else while you’re sucking me off.” He grabbed my wrists and placed them on my head like I was being arrested. “Now, finish the job.”

I looked up at his smiling lips. I didn’t know what he’d done. Undoubtedly, there was more to the story, but was I going to swallow a load of his come to find out?

I opened my mouth. He held my wrists in his right hand, gripping them tightly. With his left, he guided his cock into my mouth, and unlike a second ago when I had controlled the situation, the taste and tautness of his skin sent a bolt of pleasure through me. I couldn’t resist it. My pussy bulged when he tightened his lock on my wrists. Jesus, the motherfucker sucked away my resolve and turned it into orgasms.

He put his left hand to the back of my head and gently thrust himself down my throat, letting out a groan on the third thrust.

“You okay down there?” he asked.

I made a noise that indicated I was.

“Take it. All the way.”

The act of obeying his command engorged my clit. It throbbed, demanding I notice the tone of his voice, his new smell, his hand tugging the hair at the back of my head.

“Flatten your tongue along the bottom. Ah, like that.”

He pushed into my throat, my tongue stroking the underside of his throbbing, hot cock. He squeezed my wrists and thrust hard and fast, holding my head still. I opened my mouth wide to keep from biting him as he went down my throat to the base. The hairs of his stomach tickled my nose. All the concentration it took to keep my mouth open and take his cock only brought my own orgasm closer.

“I’m coming,” he whispered. It was a statement, not a question, and I was meant to prepare to swallow.

He grunted and came, sharp and sticky down my throat. I breathed through my nose, taking him without gagging and letting his juice run out as he finished. When he came to a stop, I kissed the end of his cock. He released my arms.

When I put them down, I caught a shooting ache in my biceps. “I better not find out you’re lying,” I said. “That was the best blowjob I ever gave anyone.”

He put himself back in his pants and zipped up. “You have a funny way of showing a guy you’re pissed off.” He reached for my hand to help me up, and I took it. He steadied me as I wobbled on my high heels.

“Welcome home,” I said. “Now, I’ve been upset for days.”

“I’m sorry about that. If you had called me, I could have told you sooner.”

“But you did
something
with her.”

He touched my chin with two fingers, then slid them over my jaw and down my neck, down my chest, stopping at my nipple, which was rock hard under my dress. He brushed his thumb against it and leaned his body into mine, kissing my lips softly while he stroked my breast.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked.

“I hate secrets.”

“I have secrets I may never tell you.”

“I only want this one today. I know she’s yours. I know she has your heart, but you promised me your body, so I have the right to it.”

He kissed my neck, finding the sensitive spots. “She has nothing of mine.”

My hands went under his jacket, finding his waist. I stroked the shape of him while he moved off my breast and down to my ass.

He gasped in my neck when he felt what I was wearing under my skirt. “Monica.”

“I was ready to do whatever I needed to so you’d tell me.”

He stepped back. “Pick up your skirt.”

“We didn’t get to enjoy this the other night.” I pulled up my skirt so he could see the garter, minus the panties. “So you’re telling me, right?”

“No.”

I put down my skirt.

He stepped closer and brushed his finger against my collarbone. “No games. I don’t want to tell you because it’s better that way. But I’ll tell you this: I spent the past three days thinking about you, how much I wanted you, and realizing I was free to have you.” He kissed me, a slow, soft grind of his lips and tongue, and I yielded to him. “Tell me you’re mine,” he whispered. “Say it.”

I wanted to. I almost did. I almost promised him whatever he wanted, but the anxiety of the last few days nagged at my chest and throat. “Tell me what happened with Jessica.”

“I’m afraid I’ll chase you away, and I don’t want to do that.”

“I can take it.”