Only Trick (44 page)

“Lucky me … I mean, lucky us.” I smile. “Thank you so much. Have a nice day.” I turn and practically have to push Trick out of the gallery. He still hasn’t said one word.

“My hero.” I wrap my arm around him as we walk to the car. “I do believe you just paid our rent, utilities, grocery, and gas bills for several months or more.”

He slips on his helmet still in a daze, leaving me to put mine on by myself this time. “I can’t believe it,” he says with an edge of sorrow or disappointment to his words.

“How can you say that? You didn’t think you’d get more than five hundred dollars for it.”

He shakes his head, throwing his leg over the bike. “I’m not talking about the money. I can’t believe I have to erase the video.”

“Oh my God!” I get on behind him and dig my fingers into his sides until he jumps, bringing his elbows in to stop me.

*

“Do it.” I
plant my hands on my hips looking over Trick’s naked shoulder … actually his naked body.

“This can’t be undone. Are you sure you don’t want to think about—”

“Do it!”

He grimaces, pressing his finger to the
delete
key, like he’s about to end all life on Earth.

And … it’s gone!

“Happy now?” He grumbles, closing his laptop.

“Yes.”

He turns, holding his arms out to the side, palms up. “So why did I have to be naked for this?
My
request made sense, but this doesn’t. The least you could have done was suck my cock to ease the pain of my loss.”

“Yeah, the way you eased my embarrassment by watching the video in the first place, and the way you’ve been talking about it ever since.”

He moves his hand to his cock and starts stroking himself.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“You like?”

I can’t look and yet I can’t not look … so of course I’m looking. “Stop it!”

His length grows in his hand with each stroke. “Feel free to touch yourself too.”

“Stop it!” My words are stern, but damn I cannot stop staring at him.

“At what point when you used to watch me did you decide you wanted to slip your hand inside your panties?”

“Put your clothes back on.” I force myself to turn my back to him.

“I will when I finish. Touch yourself, sexy.”

I turn back around. A cocky smile slides up his face as he strokes himself with more intensity. My lips part as I watch him; then my tongue circles over them.

“Take off your clothes …” he grits between his heavy breaths.

With slow seduction, I remove my clothes. It feels like his eyes are licking my flesh.

“Do you … want … to touch … yourself?” He pants out each word.

“Yes,” I breathe, sliding my hand down my belly, then turning, I flash up the stairs.

“Darby!” Trick yells with a grinding displeasure to his voice.

I slam the door to our room and lock it. Resting my back against it, I widen my stance and … touch myself. “Oh … God …”

“Darby!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The door vibrating from his fists pounding on it only intensifies my pleasure.

“Fuck!” He yells with a final punch. “Are you touching yourself?”

My fingers speed up, easily sliding along my wet sex, thanks to Trick. “Feels … so … good …”

“Stop!”

“I’m … close … oh God … right there … yes … Yes … YES!” I melt down the door as my orgasm sucks the life right out of me.

He growls a few expletives. “I want a divorce.” Then I hear his grumbling fade as he stomps down the stairs.

As far as self-induced orgasms go, that one was the best. He had me so worked up when he was stroking himself; then that voice, that damn sexy voice does it to me every time. It was torturous for me too. I wanted his body pressed to mine, filling me, more than almost anything, except how much I wanted to show him that I won the bet and he was not going to steal my victory.

I
n spite of
Trick’s claim of “sexual torture,” we’re still married. I explain to him there were no witnesses, whereas I have two witnesses that saw me tied up and bound to the back of the sofa, naked. Memories like that make me a little envious of Trick’s amnesia.

Trick looks up from his work as I lean against the door frame to the guest bedroom.

“Can I interest you in lunch?”

“You?”

I laugh. “I was breakfast. I’m thinking actual food. Maybe you could take a break. We could throw on our helmets and go someplace.”

He grins. “Great idea, there’s something we need to get while we’re out.”

“What’s that?”

He moves toward me with sexy mischief in his eyes. Laying a soft kiss on my lips, he whispers, “You’ll see.”

We stop for lunch and enjoy our meal and the great weather on the rooftop patio. I wonder when the day will come that I stop pinching myself for this life. Even with all the uncertainty of Trick’s past, it doesn’t take away from the craziness that brought us to this point in such a short amount of time. We are proof that certainty is only in the now and the future is nothing more than a random guess.

“I’m crazy in love with you.” I grin, sipping my margarita.

Trick leans back in his chair, stirring his soda with his straw. “Well, the first is definitely a requirement for the second.”

“Maybe.” I nudge his foot with mine. “How did you get into yoga?”

His lips purse to the side. “Tamsen suggested it as part of my drug rehab. A friend of hers is an instructor. It works well with the twelve-step program. It taught me new coping mechanisms.”

“And when you do it you look insanely fuckable.”

Trick chuckles while shaking his head at my crass comment that was meant to elicit this exact reaction. “Yes, of course, that’s the
main
reason I do it.”

His eyes tense as he stares at his glass. Those hidden emotions of his are running rampant; I can see it in the way his smile slips. “Why did your father hit you?”

In spite of us being outside, it feels like there’s a lack of oxygen in the air around us. I did not see that question coming. “I suppose a psychiatrist would say because he’s never properly dealt with the loss of my mom, and I’m a reminder of her. I’m here and she’s not. So when I anger him, all those pent up emotions cause him to lash out at me.”

“But why do
you
think he hit you?”

My eyes find Trick’s. “Because he’s a coward and an asshole, and he knows it. He just doesn’t like it when I remind him of it.”

“He hit you because you told him you were leaving with me.”

“No. He hit me because my mom died and I lived.”

“That’s fucked-up.”

I shrug.

Trick leans forward, taking my hand. “I owe your mom
everything
.”

Tears.

I swallow the lump of emotions in my throat. “Did I mention I’m crazy in love with you?”

A lip twitch.

*

We end up
down in Cabo … at a tattoo parlor.

“What are you getting now?” I ask as he takes off my helmet. “Have you made sure this is a reputable place? Tattoo removal isn’t a fun process, and you also need to make sure you’re not going to end up with an infection.”

He cups my face, laying a sound kiss on my lips. “I’ve checked everything out. We’ll be fine.”

“
We’ll
?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need a tattoo.”

“Yes, you do. Come.”

I
don’t
come. I stand rooted to the ground by the motorcycle.

Trick looks back. “What?” He sighs.

“I’ve never thought about getting a tattoo before.”

“Then don’t think about it now. Come.” He gestures with his head to the door.

With lead in my shoes, I make my way to him. He takes my hand and drags me inside.

After an hour wait it’s our turn. I’ve been informed I don’t get to pick out my tattoo.
Figures.
Trick negotiates with the artist while I observe our surroundings, inspecting the sanitary conditions.

“Do you want to go first or do you want me to?” Trick asks.

Does he really have to ask?

A smirk and head shake. “I’ll go first.”

I give him a slow you-bet-your-ass-you-will nod.

Thirty minutes later and we’re on our way home. Left ring fingers bandaged over the date we got married tattooed in sanskrit. I nearly cried at just how romantic of a gesture it was … That and getting a tattoo on the sensitive skin of my finger hurt like hell. Trick didn’t even flinch.
Cocky showoff!

“Wife.” Trick opens the door to the house.

“Husband.” I grin, holding up my bandaged finger while walking past him.

“What are you doing?” He asks as I send a text to Tamsen.

“I’m telling Tamsen you bought me a wedding band today … or…” I glance up with an annoyed smirk “…a
marriage
band.”

He bends down, burying his stubbly face in the crook of my neck. “You can call it a wedding … a marriage … a ceremony … getting hitched.” He skims his hands up my sides, dropping his mouth to my cleavage exposed with my V-neck top. “You said ‘I do.’ That’s all that matters to me.”

Trick is anything but conventional. I was a little surprised that marriage mattered to him, but then he brought me to the place where his parents met and I saw a side to Trick I’m quite certain very few have ever seen—the boy who grew up a witness to the most beautiful, yet tragic love story ever.

“Show me … show me how much it matters.” Each one of my words comes out a breathy slur as I set my phone on the counter.

He straightens, that sexy gaze a slow lick up the center of my sex as I melt with need for his touch. Wasting no time, he gives me what he knows I want—he removes his shirt. I grin and remove mine. We make haste with ridding our bodies of the rest of our clothes.

“Bed or counter?” He presses his naked body to mine, tangling his hands in my hair, tugging my head back until I’m looking up into his eyes.

“Counter.”

He kisses me and lifts me up.

“Ooo! Bed!” I squeal, clamping my legs around his waist as the cold tile meets my bottom.

He laughs and carries me upstairs. “You just got your first tattoo but the counter is too cold?”

“Shut up.” I kiss him as he lays us down on the bed. Pressing my palms to his face, I push him back just far enough to look into his eyes. “Counter says quickie. I don’t want anything about this to be quick.” I brush my thumb over his bottom lip. “Show me your
wedding
vows.”

He does … he shows me that the memories we make will be filled with long motorcycle rides, lazy, long lunches at little restaurants in town, and plenty of quickies on cold tile. But at the end of every day we’ll remember that our memories are all chapters to a love story … our love story.

*