Beg (8 page)

Gabby situated herself at the end of the bar and ordered
something. I hoped it was soda. Alcohol’s a depressant, and she could assure me
she had hope all she wanted. I didn’t believe she had as much control as she
asserted.

“You drive a hard bargain.” He put his drink down. “And you’re
funny. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth next.”

I had a million jokes about what was going in my mouth, but I kept
them to myself as I pulled him into the back room.

***

The dressing room was locked. I was momentarily stumped, but I
remembered there was another one for men. I took his hand and led him deeper
into the back, passing the kitchen and backmost hallway, to the least populated
part of the club.

“I’m really liking this scrubbing idea,” he said as I pulled him
into the second dressing room, which was as gross as the first, and slammed the
door behind me. If he had more wisecracks, they got swallowed in a kiss. I ran
my fingers through his hair, pressing his face to mine, then ran them down the
length of his body. I pushed him onto the chair, which squeaked when he fell
into it.

I kneeled in front of him, the industrial carpet digging into my
knees, and opened his fly. I stroked the hardness under his boxers until I
teased out his cock. It was rock hard and gorgeous.

“You ready?” I asked.

“You are really cute.”

He held his arms out as if to say
come at me.

I pulled up his shirt and kissed his stomach, which was hard and
tight, down the line of hair, until I got to his base. I put him between my
lips, kissed it, sucking the length on one side, then the other, running my
tongue up and down the taut skin, tasting the sharpness of it. He took a deep
breath. I flattened my tongue against the underside and ran it up to the end,
then put the head in my mouth, sucking it on the way out. I tasted a salty drop
of moisture on his tip.

I looked up at him as I slid it into my mouth again. His lips
parted and he looked straight at me, moving my hair from my eyes. Perfect. I
moved down, sliding the whole huge length of him into my open mouth.

“Oh,” he whispered as I took him to the bottom. I moved my head
up and down, taking all of him with every stroke, sucking on the way out,
rubbing him with my tongue on the way in. I looked up at him again, going slow,
letting him see every inch of his dick going in my mouth. I picked up the pace
slightly, then gave three really fast strokes. He sighed and thrust his hips
forward, jamming himself down my throat. I had him. All I had to do was slow
down and tease him so close he’d beg me to finish him.

But he put his head back and looked at the ceiling, groaning deep
in his throat. It was such a position of surrender, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
stop. I was going to make him to come way before he begged.

He was going to have me at his beck and call until sunrise.

I didn’t like jewelry that much anyway.

CHAPTER 8.

He’d smirked when he’d given me his address and tried to give me
directions, but I knew where he lived, give or take. He was up in the park,
where the lawyers and magnates play. I remembered Debbie’s edict to just have
fun, but the fact I’d failed in my mission to get him to take me to Tiffany
rankled. Not that I really had anything to go with the karats I would have made
him buy me, but failure wasn’t something I took lightly, especially if it meant
I’d been weak.

The valet pulled up with his dark green Jaguar. “Can I drive you
to your car?” Jonathon asked.

“I’m in the lot,” I said. “It’s fine.”

He put his face close to mine, until I could feel his breath in
my ear. “If you don’t want to go home with me, I won’t hold you to it. We can
wait, or we can call it off.”

“A bet’s a bet.”

He brushed his nose on my cheek. “You sure? I can be demanding.”

“So can I.”

He stepped back and smiled. “Not tonight, you’re not.” He moved
onto the curb. “I’ll leave the gate open for you.” He got into the car and
drove off. I watched it head down
LaBrea
, swaggering
just like he did.

When I went inside, Gabby had already called a cab. I could smell
a vodka tonic on her breath, but she seemed relatively sober.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” I said.

“Monica, you want to go, so just go. I’m tired of being babied.”

And that was that. I put her in a cab and walked to my car.

My phone buzzed as I got into my little Honda. It was
Vinny
. Fucking
Vinny
.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Vegas, baby.” He was somewhere loud and unruly, yelling into the
phone.

“We’ve been looking for you. The band broke up.”

“I can’t hear you. Listen,
Sexybitch
,
you did a gig tonight at that shithole on Santa Monica?”

“
Fron
—”

“Eugene
Testarossa’s
partner was there.
Testarossa
himself is coming the next time you go. So
you text me when you’re up next, and I’ll call him back and he’ll show up.
Bang! You’re in.”

“
Vinny
, I can’t—”

“Text me, baby. Love you.”

He cut the call.

What an asshole. He goes to Vegas for how long and now he wants
his fifteen percent because I got my own gig? Oh no. That wasn’t going to work.
I texted him,

—
You’re fired
—

I was at my car when the phone dinged.

—
Fuck I am. You
signed a contract
—

—
The band signed a
contract. The band didn’t play tonight. I played solo
—

There was a longer pause, and I sat in the driver’s seat waiting
to hear back, my night of subservience forgotten.

—
Good luck getting
WDE to take your call
—

I shut off my phone. I wanted to throw it, but I couldn’t afford
to replace it when I smashed it into a million pieces. He was right. No one at
WDE was going to take a call or email from me. They’d contacted
Vinny
. I wouldn’t get past the first round of assistants.
Their job was to filter out artists. I could sing
Under My Skin
a hundred more times and never get another
opportunity like this.

I think I looked out the window for fifteen minutes, resigning
myself to the fact that I had a manager I hated and distrusted, and he was
going to take a chunk of money from me from now until I accepted my Grammy.

I started the engine, but I had forgotten where I was going. Then
that weight between my legs came back. Shit. I had an evening of wild sex
planned with a rich womanizer who liked cute broke chicks. I was worrying about
Vinny
Landfillian
. Fuck
him.
 
I hated Los Angeles.

All money and connections.

He can be a valuable friend
.

All I needed was a lawyer to unravel that contract, and I was
about to screw a guy who
 
must have
had a hundred sharky lawyers on speed dial. All I had to do was let him boss me
around all night. The pleasure would be all mine.

I put the car in drive and headed east to Griffith Park.

It was wrong. My mother didn’t raise me like that. She raised a
nice girl who cared about her body more than her career. I didn’t know who that
girl was or what she wanted out of life though. I knew who I was. And the only
thing I wanted more than Jonathan
Drazen’s
body was
an agent at WDE.

***

The houses north of Los
Feliz
Boulevard
aren’t dream houses. A dream house in Los Angeles has four walls and a roof and
maybe heat, but no one can afford it. The houses up in Griffith Park are
scenery. They’re owned by other people, the people who live on the other side.
Not nouveau riche rock stars and actors. Old money. Generations worth of trust
funds. Three thousand square feet was a palace behind ten-foot hedges. I drove
up the winding pass. Never having looked at the addresses before, I was at a
loss to find them. It was as if you were supposed to just
know
where you were going because you belonged there.

I finally found the address under a gigantic fig tree with a
brass plaque next to it, announcing the tree’s status as a protected landmark.
The gate opened for me, and I went up the drive and parked next to the Jag.

I sat in the car and looked at the house, convincing myself I
still had a choice between going in or going home. The house was a craftsman,
all warm lighting and dark woods. The porch was as big as my living room,
leading to a wide, thick door. It was closed.

I took a deep breath.

Bottom line: He was hot, he was charming, and he didn’t want
anything out of me but the same thing I wanted. Unless he wanted me to clean
his bathroom. I took hours to clean a bathroom, and I wasn’t cleaning his.

I slid my phone out of my purse and called Darren.

“Hi,” I said. “How was the show?”

“Fantastic. What’s up?”

“I thought you should know…” I swallowed hard. “I sent Gabby home
in a cab.”

“You what?”

“She’s tired of being followed around.”

“And where are you?” He was pissed. He sounded like he was in the
middle of a street, with people everywhere.

“Griffith Park. I can explain more later.”

“No, explain now why you let a suicidal woman go home alone when
her meds obviously aren’t working and she’s showing the same behaviors she did
just before you found her bleeding into your kitchen sink.”

“She’s fine.”

“This is completely irresponsible.”

He hung up, which was a huge favor. I didn’t want to tell him
why
I’d ditched Gabby.

I got out and walked up to the porch. Stained glass windows
bordered the door. The light on the other side was soft and inviting.
This would be all right. Just fine.

I knocked so softly, he couldn’t have heard me unless he’d been
waiting. I needed to see if he’d found something else to occupy him or if he
was looking forward to seeing me. That could set the timbre for what I could
request in the way of a warm call to WDE on my behalf.

The door opened immediately.

He wore the same button down shirt and jeans he’d worn at
Frontage. His feet were bare, and in his right hand, he held a glass containing
whiskey on ice.

I stood with my bag in front of me, which didn’t stop him from
looking at me as if he wanted to eat me alive. He leaned on the door jamb and
swirled his drink. “I thought you weren’t coming. I was starting to think I was
losing my touch.”

“This is a nice house.”

“I wanted to mention something about that, before you come in.”
He paused, and I waited. Despite the distractions of the past half hour, I was
back to wanting to put my tongue all over his body. “All bets are on?” he
asked.

“I’m yours to command.”

He took my bag and put it on a side table. “Turn around.”

I put my back to him. My car sat in the drive, next to his, the
gate to the street wide open. He clicked the button on a little handheld box,
and the gate slid closed.

The ice in his glass clinked, and I felt the touch of his hand at
the base of my neck, then a tug as he unzipped my dress. “Jonathan…”

“No one can see.”

The zipper went down past my lower back, and he slowly pulled it
open. The sleeves slipped off a little when his hand, cold from the drink,
touched between my shoulder blades. He ran his hand up to my neck, then over my
right shoulder, pushing the dress off. Then he ran his hand to the left
shoulder, until the dress slipped off and pooled around my ankles. I felt a
breeze over my body. He slipped his finger under the bra strap. “Take this
off.”

I did, dropping it to the porch floor. He stroked under my
waistband. He wanted that off too. I knew it, and I complied. I was fully naked
except for my shoes, with my back to him.

“Face me.”

I did. I’d never felt so naked in my life as he took his time
looking me over.

“Hands behind your back.”

I think if anyone else had gotten to command number four, I would
have started laughing, but he wasn’t anyone else.

“You doing okay?” he asked, stepping up to me. He put the glass
to my lips and tipped it. Warmth filled my chest. It was good whiskey. The
single malt I’d suspected.

“It’s warm tonight,” I said.

He put his face up to mine and whispered, “Infield fly rule. What
is it?”

He kissed my neck as I answered. “When there’s a force play at
third, any fly hit inside the baselines, whether it’s caught or not, means the
batter’s automatically out.”

“Why?” He bit the corner of my neck and shoulder, and I gasped.

“To prevent an intentional error that would manufacture a double
play.”

“You are very real.” He enunciated each word.

He drank the last of the whiskey and took an ice cube in his
teeth. He put his face to mine and pressed the ice cube to my lips. I sucked on
it, then took it from him, holding it in my mouth.

He took half a step back. I must have been a sight: naked but for
my heels, hands behind my back, with an ice cube in my mouth. “And you are
stunning,” he said, lifting his glass. He put the cold base of it to my nipple,
and I groaned as it hardened. He touched the other one, chilling it to a rock.

He bent down and warmed my breast with his mouth, sucking on the
hard tip, pulling on it with lip-blunted teeth. I gasped, but couldn’t open my
mouth farther or I’d lose the ice. I guess that wouldn’t have been the worst
tragedy, but I knew the game was to keep the ice in my teeth. His attention to
my breast made me groan, awakening the warmth in my crotch. The ice in my mouth
melted, dripping down my chin and neck, tingling a wet path to my stomach. He
licked the droplets that found their way to my breasts, warming cooled skin
with his tongue. When I thought I couldn’t take another minute of his attention
without falling down from the pleasure of it, he stood straight and put his
mouth over mine, sucking the ice back.