Tousle Me (4 page)

Labron supresses a groan. “Your wish is my command.”

“Oh, and Labron?”

“Yeah?”

Hunter tuts and wags his fingers. “No sexual favors.”

“Dang.”

Labron wanders over to placate the frat boys. Hunter holds open the limo door, smiles wickedly, and gestures for me to get in. The seats are velvety black leather, and I sink right into them as I sit down.

“Wow,” I say softly. “It’s really nice in here.”

Hunter climbs in next to me. He smells a little like a freshly gutted weasel, but also like expensive body wash, so it’s okay. When his thigh presses against mine, I go all shivery.
Brr.

“So…where are we going tonight?” I ask, dubious. I already ate three handfuls of popcorn, and my lack of eating issues will make it difficult to stomach another dinner.

Hunter smirks. “It’s a surprise.”

I hear the driver’s door open and close at the front of the limo. The engine revs up before we ease out on to the road. So Labron is the driver. Hmm. Is it me, or is there some kind of commentary on slavery going on? We probably shouldn’t talk about it, though. That would be racist.

“How has your day been, gosling?” Hunter asks. There’s a prying tone to his voice, as if he really cares.

“Oh, you know. Same old.” I shuffle around, uncomfortable at having his eyes on me.

Then I realize it’s actually just a bit of weasel eyeball stuck to his jacket, and I relax.

“No, I don’t know,” he purrs. “So tell me.”

“Why don’t you tell me about
your
day?” I ask.

“Nothing special.” He shrugs. “Had a bit of coffee. Worked out for three hours straight. Brooded over my strangely powerful attraction to you.” His brows dip artfully. “It isn’t just me, is it? Do you…feel it, too?”

“Feel what?” I panic. Am I meant to be feeling anything? Is this sex?!

Hunter sits back against the leather seat and inhales deeply. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “Soon, I’ll show you.”

He sounds like he’s going to violate me in a dark alley. Good thing he’s hot; that means he totally gets away with it.

“When we get to the club,” Hunter goes on, “there’s a contract I’d like you to take a look at.”

I jerk up. My heart thumps. In one of my favorite books of all time, The Hero offers his intended lady love a contract—because he wants to properly own her snatch. Oh God. Is Hunter going to make a ten second phone call that results in him owning my snatch?

Who would he even call for that?

“Gosling.” Hunter reaches out to stroke my cheek. “Don’t look so terrified. It’s just paper. You love paper.”

“I do love books,” I say, hesitantly.

“You love paper with words and stuff printed all over it. You’ll be fine.”

But all I can think about is, help! Who owns my vagina?

As we drive to the club, Hunter broods, his fingers steepled in his lap. I wonder if he’s thinking about being in his old band, Eine Richtung. I watched some of their videos earlier on YouTube; Hunter is an amazing singer. So expressive, even in German. I made out that he crooned mournfully about horses a little, but that was it. Mostly I stared at his crotch in the skinny jeans he wore.

I’m still trying to figure out why a British guy joined a German band. Maybe, being German, they just didn’t give him a choice.

“We’re here,” Hunter whispers.

“Oh.” I pull myself together—figuratively, because anything else would just be stupid.

Labron holds the door open and I slip out, clutching Hunter’s black jacket around myself so I don’t flash my muff at any frat boys. I’m expecting to see an upmarket kind of place, you know, with a pillared door flanked by those bay trees you get in really boxy looking brown boxes. And a glass box on the wall containing a menu printed in tiny, illegible text. This is not that place.

“Uh, Hunter?” I stare at the building, which is painted a rather unclassy shade of matte black in order to hide the door. “Where are we?”

He puts a hand on the small of my back. “Welcome to Hoi Sinful. It’s my favorite BDSM dungeon slash Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet.”

Oh oh oh. It
is
one of those contracts. In sheer panic, I go to clutch my vagina but pause at the last minute, sighing inwardly as a compromise. Then a popcorn burp tries to erupt from the back of my throat and I end up with hamster cheeks trying to contain it, while my vagina hand just kind of claws at the air.

Hunter stares at me. “Are you okay?”

I can’t open my mouth, so I nod.

“Then come,” he says, gesturing to the almost-hidden door. As if by magic, it swings open, and a doorman dressed in a white fur vest gestures for us to enter. I want to text Enid immediately and tell her I’m about to visit sexual Narnia.

We’re just about to cross the threshold when Hunter freezes. He brings a huge paw of a manicured hand to his chin, tapping in thought.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It’s just…this BDSM thing.” He scowls. “Don’t you think it’s a bit 2012?”

“I—I wouldn’t know,” I stammer.

“I deliberated. Really, I did.” He sighs. “Earlier on, I stared into the mirror and I said, Hunter—is this what you want? Or is it a little passé? Are you going to follow the crowd, or are you going to get up there and do what you always do: your own thing?”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, so I nod furiously.

“I mean, sure, my alpha tendencies do lend themselves well to the sexy and psychotic Dom stereotype. But I have to ask myself—is that what I truly am? Is that
all
I am? Cammie, I don’t just want you to see that side of me. I want you to see every last inch of my—” He pauses as
Eye of The Tiger
starts to blast from his cell. He pulls it out, frowning. “Oh. Would you look at that? It’s my underground cage fight alarm.”

“Look at that,” I say, still incredibly confused. “It’s your…what now?”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head.” He takes my hand and leads me back to the limo, waving at the mink-vested doorman with his free hand.

“Oh, I won’t.” Thank God I won’t have to see the violent, primal side of Hunter, and we’re going to the cage fight instead.

Back in the car, Hunter presents me with an iPad. A document has been loaded on to the screen.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“The contract.”

Oh. Oh superpoop. The Contract. I’m not sure I want to know what this says, except… “Are—are those GIFs?”

“Why yes. They are. Gosling…this is me signing over ownership of Goodreads to you. I put the whole thing into GIFs so your tiny female brain could understand it.”

“I’m sorry?” I wince. Tiny female brain? Who was correcting who’s grammar last night, hmm? Who— “Oh my God. Is that Neil Patrick Harris dressed like a squid?” I snatch the iPad immediately.

“Yep. Squid Patrick Harris. I commissioned it especially.” Hunter grins, his green eyes alight with smuggery.

“In one day?”

“Indeed.”

“That was quick.”

He chuckles, tossing his hair. “I get that a lot.”

I spend the next five minutes on a pixel-based underwater adventure with Squid PH, learning about the ins and outs of company ownership. I needn’t have worried about owning my vagina; owning Goodreads is the best thing ever. What will I do with all my phenomenal cosmic power? I mean, I
could
start by reviewing the censorship policy, but what I really want to do is change every fifth word in the Harry Potter blurbs to BIG DANGLY PENIS.

Hunter nudges me. “What are you chortling about?”

I beam up at him. “Oh. Nothing.”

“I love to see you happy, gosling.”

“I am happy, Hunter. So very, very happy.” I sigh gleefully. This boy gives me all the feels.

“And to think.” He sits back and joins me in a contented sigh. “I haven’t even shown you my one-eyed snake yet.” He pauses. “Or my cock.”

If Hunter has a pet snake, I’m sure glad he didn’t bring it out in a manbag. It could meet the same fate as the weasel.

As we travel to the cage fight venue, I realize that Hunter hasn’t kissed me yet. He hasn’t even
tried
to kiss me. And then I start to worry. What if he doesn’t like me? I mean, how can a girl like me compete with Taylor Swift anyway? I’m just wasting my time here. Wikipedia was right. Then it occurs to me that the inside of the limo is kind of like the inside of a cupboard, and I feel horribly sick. A single hot tear slips down my cheek, landing with a fat splosh on the iPad.

“Oh, Cammie.” Hunter grips my knee with a strong hand. “What’s wrong? Has Squid Patrick Harris upset you?”

“No, no. Not that.” I sniff, trying to wipe my eye, but he catches my fingers and brings them to his lips. “I just…we’ve been together now for a whole twelve minutes and you haven’t made one single uninvited attempt to touch me inappropriately.”

Hunter nips my fingers. “Gosling. Don’t you remember that I like to…tease?”

I stare into his big green eyes with intensity. “I remember.”

“See what I did there, with the little dramatic pause before I said…tease?”

I give him a tearstained smile. “I see. You clever thing, you.”

It actually makes him sound like he has a speech impediment, but his hair is extra tousled tonight so who the fuck cares.

Turns out the cage fight is in the basement of Hoi Sinful, and we’ve been driving in circles for ten minutes. Labron was singing to his Beyonce CD and got confused.

Hunter ushers me down a shadowy, narrow flight of stairs. The buzz of a crowd floats up to greet us, and he has to whisper right into my ear so I can hear him. I love the feel of his warm breath on my skin.

“Now listen, gosling. These fights can get pretty extreme. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“But Hunter, what if you get hurt?”

“Maybe I don’t care,” he says gruffly. “Maybe I deserve it.”

One of the things I love most about Hunter is his ability to hint at his dark past without actually revealing what it is. It lulls me into a false sense of security about our future together. Mmm, false sense of security. Tastes like chicken.

I’ve never been to a cage fight before, so I’m surprised to see a massive circular podium wrapped in wire caging walls, and a sea of rough, rowdy spectators. Technically, I smell them before I see them. Beer plus sweat plus poor ventilation equals…you do the math, I’m an English major.

Hunter finds me a stool by the bar, and tucks his fist gently under my chin so he can look at me. “I’m going to go prepare myself. The fight starts in ten minutes. Labron will take care of you, okay?”

“Okay,” I manage.

He goes to walk away, but stops. “Just remember, Cammie. I’m doing this all for you.” He takes a few more steps, then turns back again. “And because the alarm says I have to. But mostly, mostly, for you.”

The crowd parts for Hunter like the Red Sea. There’s an air of respect apparent as he nods to some people, casually high-fives others. The cage looks terrifying and super brutal, and I try to hide inside my thoughts to stop worrying about him, but it’s way too loud in here. Plus I can’t find any thoughts.

Labron appears beside me with two very fancy cocktails.

“I asked for the most fabulous drinks they had,” he says, offering me a glass of something orange and red and green and decorated with a cherry. “Best get tipsy, Ginger. You’ll need it.”

Labron and I clink glasses for some reason.

“So does he do this a lot?” I ask.

“Hunter? Oh yeah. He fights a couple times a month. Since…you know…the band split…” He trails off wearily. “Dude’s got a lot of rage to channel.”

I frown. “Aren’t there better ways to release frustration?”

“Oh, you mean the sexytimes? He has loads of those.”

I wince, and Labron holds up a hand.

“But not since he met you,” he protests quickly. “Obviously.”

“Actually, I was talking about therapy,” I say.

“Professional help? Nah. Way too logical for any self-respecting romance hero.”

I nod sagely. “Fair point.”

As I fiddle with my straw, I gaze into the orange abyss of my drink, and try not to imagine Hunter being beaten to a pulp by the troubled chunk of tattoos and denial he’ll no doubt be battling shortly.

“So who else is fighting tonight?” I ask Labron.

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“No.”

“Was he doing the…teasing thing?” Labron grimaces.

“Yup.”

“Ugh. Cringe.” He pauses to take a big slurp of his cocktail. “Dude’s fighting Rabies Maddox.”

Two college guys with fists full of dollar bills push past me, shouting about bets and reeking of beer. Labron eyeballs them, protecting me in the crook of his arm.

“I’m sorry—who?” I ask.

“Please tell me you’ve heard of Rabies Maddox.”

“Er…should I have?”

“It would be really weird if you hadn’t,” says Labron, suspicious. “The whole campus is unconvincingly preoccupied with his reputation.”

“What’s his real name?” I ask. “Maybe I’ve heard of that.”

“That
is
his real name. He’s a walking bag of accelerated symptoms: aggressive, delusional, excessive production of saliva.” Labron sighs wistfully. “Constant erection.”

“Ooh.” I fiddle with the cocktail umbrella on my drink. “Sounds hot.”

“You betcha.” He nudges me. “Looky—here comes the ringmaster.”

I don’t know how a gay man can say
ringmaster
with a straight face. Actually, I don’t know how a gay man can do a straight face.

The dark basement grows quiet as a fat frat boy (from Pi Pi Beta Pi) in a badly-fitting check shirt, holds up a microphone. “Ladies, gents and stock supporting characters,” he announces, “hold on to your gonads, bitches—it’s Fucking Illegal Cagefight Night!”

The crowd bursts into a roar, and they begin to stomp. My drink ripples like a T-Rex is ten seconds away. I’m beginning to like this cage fight shit—it’s forbidden and unexpected and a bit dirty. Which is just how I like my coffee; thanks for asking.

“A word to the wise on how things work around here,” Fat Frat Boy goes on. “No bet rigging—we’ll find you out. Your mom will tell me in between sucking my dick and licking my balls. No distracting the competitors—you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of their big, swinging…fists.” He makes wild hand gestures to encourage more laughter for his very poor jokes. “And finally: stay out of my ring, gentlemen. It’s not safe for man or beast.”