Lauren Blakely - Night After Night

“What do you mean?”

“Secrets eat away at people,” he said, practically spitting out the words on the red counter.

She’d touched some kind of nerve.

Okay, fine. She got it – secrets could suck. But she had a big one, and she didn’t need or want to feel like she was doing something wrong by keeping it. She had no choice. She was boxed in by her awful ex and what he’d done to her, and now by what Charlie was doing to her as he made her pay for Dillon’s crimes – crimes he blamed on her. Some days she felt like she’d never get out from under it all. Not from Charlie and not from the need for secrets and lies.

She grabbed the steering wheel of the conversation and swerved out of the way of the topic. “I have a secret I can tell you. Mine is that I’m wearing no underwear.”

That earned her a wicked grin. He laid a strong hand on her knee. “Hardly a secret. I knew that. Tell me things that are secret now, but won’t be in a few seconds. Tell me what you love most in the world,” he said.

“Cupcakes, my sister, and freedom,” she said, and truer words were never spoken.

“And what do you hate most?”

That was easy. Too easy. “Owing things,” she said, and because she didn’t want to discuss it more she turned the questions back on him. “What do you love most in the world?”

“Scotch. Ties. Movies. Family.”

“And what do you hate most?”

“Lies. I hate lies.”

“But you’re a lawyer,” she said, furrowing her brow.

“So that means I can’t dislike lies?”

“Don’t you have to lie for a living?”

“No. I don’t have to lie,” he said, and his voice was strong and passionate. “I fight. I fight for what my clients want. There’s a difference.”

“What else do you fight for?”

“For the things I want.”

“Do you want me?” She asked, turning the conversation down another street yet again.

“I want you so fucking much, Julia,” he said, and he wasn’t giving an order or command this time. There was something almost naked in his voice. A vulnerability that he let show now and then. He pulled her close, buzzed his lips along her jaw, then up to her ear. “I meant it when I said I couldn’t stop thinking about you all week. I wanted to fuck you and I wanted to talk you. I want to spend more time with you. I want to get to know you more and more. You fascinate me,” he said, kissing her neck, his sandpaper stubble rough against her skin, the feel of him melting her inside.

His words too sent a shudder through her, filling her with that delicious feeling of falling in like with someone. Of flutters and wishes and the hope for more – more time, more moments. But saying she wanted more was hard for her. Letting someone in was even tougher because she knew where it might lead to – to her being owned in yet another way she’d never see coming. So she shifted back to the pure truth of the physical.

“Now you’re turning me on again,” she whispered.

“It’s a good thing you’re not wearing any panties.”

“Oh yeah. Why’s that?”

He pulled away, glanced around the restaurant as if he were sweeping it for spies, then reached into his back pocket. There were a few other diners at nearby tables, as well as the bartender and the waiter. He took his hand from his pocket, his fingers curled around in a fist, like he was hiding something.

“Are you a good actress?” he asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“Because I’m going to test you right now.” He slid his hand under her skirt; her legs were hidden under the edge of the counter. Then she felt it – a buzzing against her bare thigh.

“What is that?” She hitched in her breath.

“Something I got for you,” he said. “Do you like coming?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Our dinner will be here any minute,” he said, tipping his chin towards the waiter who scurried to the kitchen. “I want you to come before he arrives with the food.”

“Clay,” she said under her breath, but when he pressed his finger against her center, she bit her lip to silence her groan. The vibration was intense. He had some kind of mini-vibrator strapped to his index finger, and he wasn’t messing around. He was hitting her right where she was hot for him, and the sudden friction against her clit turned her insides molten.

“Show me what a good actress you are.”

“I’m a great actress,” she said, through gritted teeth as he teased the vibrator in a dizzying circle around her flesh. Delicious sensations flooded her body, and she fought her impulse to hold onto the edge of the counter, as he rubbed her faster, sending sparks racing through her bloodstream.

A couple having dinner a few tables away pushed back their chairs, the legs scraping across the wood floor. The man held the woman’s coat, and the woman looked in Julia’s direction as she slid her arms into the sleeves. Julia plastered on a fake smile, pressing her lips firmly together, clamping inside her mouth all the moans and scream and cries she wanted to unleash.

“I’m looking forward to eating. I hope the food arrives soon,” Clay mused, keeping one hand under her skirt as he reached for his scotch with his free hand. He tapped her clit with the vibrator – gently but insistently – sending an exquisite pulse between her legs that spread like ripples, reaching all the way to her fingertips.

Oh god. She wanted to roll her eyes in pleasure, to spread her legs wide.

“What about you, Julia? You hungry for your risotto?” He tilted his head to the side, giving her a deliberately curious stare.

“Sure.” She sucked in a moan as a wave of intensity slammed between her legs. She ached with a desperate desire to be touched, to be felt. To come. He moved his finger back and forth, the pad of the vibrator driving her into another world of pleasure. Involuntarily, her shoulders curled in.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she choked out.

“You sure?” He stroked her fast, then faster. “You don’t seem like yourself?”

“Just hungry,” she muttered as he pushed harder against her swollen clit, bathing her entire being with the thrilling sensations of vibration. She could barely take it anymore. She’d been reduced to nothing but feelings, but the raw physical need for release from the flames lapping up her being. She wanted to throw back her head, run her hands through her hair, slide her palms down her own body to savor every second. But she knew how to bluff. She knew how to fake it.

“I think the food’s on its way,” he said, gesturing with his eyes to the kitchen door. The waiter appeared, holding it open with his elbow, balancing plates along his arm.

Julia swallowed hard, and wanted to pant, to moan, to scream. She wanted to climb up the walls, to rub herself against Clay’s thigh, something, anything, to relieve the build inside that was teetering on the edge of explosion.

“Looks like he’ll be here any second. What about you? You ready?”

“I think I might be,” she said in a choppy voice, trying so hard not to give an inch.

But he was hitting her where her body sang, turning her up, all the way on. And if she were alone with him, she’d have grabbed his shoulders and held on hard. Instead, she gripped the edge of the stool, her sharp nails digging into the wood, surely leaving scratch marks, as she channeled there all her desires to writhe and moan and let herself bathe in the bliss of the orgasm that rocketed through her body. She was coming, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The orgasm was on a high-speed chase, tearing around curves, racing through every cell. Julia Bell was coming at the bar, eyes wide open, lips sealed shut, body still as still could be. Every inch of her was lit up and ignited.

The waiter set down their plates as her entire body buzzed with the delicious tingles of an orgasm she hid fiercely.

“Your risotto, miss,” he said, gesturing to the plate. Then he set down Clay’s meal. “Do you need anything else?”

“I believe I have everything I could possibly want,” Clay said, then flashed a quick smile, before turning to her. “What about you? Do you need anything more?”

“I’m good,” she said, her eyes bugging out.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said with a satisfied sigh, that one syllable strung out, the only hint of what had just gone down.

The waiter left, and she picked up her fork. “I am famished.”

“You deserve some sort of award for that performance.”

“My reward will be torturing you when you least expect it.”

“I will count down the seconds until that kind of torture comes my way.”

Her phone woke her up in the morning.

She’d turned the damn thing off last night, seeing as she was spent and exhausted from her time with Clay, but now it was buzzing. McKenna probably wanted more details on last night since they always shared these kind of tidbits with each other – not the nitty gritty sex details, but the so you really like him part. It had been a long time since Julia had actually liked someone. Even with Dillon, even as it ended, the really like him feelings had faded well before. Sure, she’d fallen for him in the start, for his self-deprecating humor, for his piercing blue eyes, for the sweet nothings he whispered to her that made her feel special.

She met him when he was one of her students at a weekend class she’d been teaching at a boutique bar in Noe Valley on the art of making cocktails. She’d taken on the class before she bought a stake in Cubic Z; the class helped supplement her bartending income. And Dillon had been her finest student, his keen eye for detail giving him a leg up as he mixed and matched the perfect amounts.