Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 (9 page)

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, which I had a hard time creatively misinterpreting, though I did try—for several silent moments of walking.

The garden was beautiful—all lush and tidy, with just the right number of chubby bumblebees flying around from blossom to blossom.

We walked by a wedding party having their photos taken. We stopped to watch as the photographer set the camera on a timer, then tossed it up in the air to take an aerial photo of the group, looking up.

As we left and continued our tour, Keith and I both said in unison, “I wonder how often he has to buy a new camera.”

We didn’t jinx each other, but laughed and laughed.

Keith pulled me with him to hide on the other side of a big tree, where he kissed me with vigor and grabbed my ass with even more vigor. We kept kissing, and he brought one hand around to the front of my knee, then up my skirt and down my panties. I gasped in shock as his fingers nudged my hot crease. People were all around us, even though we were hidden behind the tree.

He growled near my ear as he rocked his fingers back and forth, gliding across my clit.

“Mercy!” I moaned.

He whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry, you’re not going to come. Just relax. Let it build, but don’t come.”

“You are the worst,” I breathed.

“Is this good?” He swirled his fingertips in a circle.

“Is this good?” he repeated.

I whimpered that his fingers on my clit were
very
good, and he rotated us around so my back was against the rough tree bark, my hair getting tangled in small branches as I rocked in rhythm with his hand.

He kissed me, licking my lips slowly with his tongue, then swirling it in my mouth, but just the tip, just a tease.

The first sparks started in my pussy, and I lunged for his mouth, wanting to inhale him, tongue first, but still he held back. My muscles clenched in anticipation, and then he slowly dragged his fingers up, out of my panties.

I opened my eyes and stared at him in disbelief as he put his fingers in his mouth and sucked them, relishing in my taste and my frustration—mostly my frustration.

I whisper-scolded, “Keith Raven, you are a pussy tease!”

He laughed and smoothed down the front of my purple wrap skirt, then pulled me forward and smoothed the back of my hair.

“You’re so fun to tease,” he replied.

“Oh, so this is all my fault? Right. Blame the victim.”

He leaned back, his arms wrapped around my lower back so our hips and legs were touching. After a studying look, he said, “Admit you’re having a great time today.”

Playing coy, I said, “I like my new dress.”

“So do all the men in this park. They’re all checking out your peachy curves, and the wives and girlfriends are all pissed about it.”

“You’re mistaken. The girls are all checking YOU out and wondering what the hell you’re doing with a regular girl like me.”

With a growl, he pushed me back against the rough bark of the tree again, his hands on either side of me and his torso pinning me. As he kissed my neck and earlobe, he said, “There is nothing regular about you or the way you make me feel. If there weren’t so many people around, I’d throw you down in a bed of daisies and bury my face between your sweet thighs.”

I gasped for air. “And then what?” I was so turned on, I felt like what he was describing was actually happening.

“You’d discover underwear modeling is one of my side talents, but tongue-work is my real specialty.”

“Oh?” My heart was pounding, my whole body quivering.

He licked the side of my neck roughly, then gently, flicking my earlobe, then giving it a hard suck, his breath hot and ticklish in my ear.

“Excuse me,” came a high, thin voice.

I opened my eyes to see a well-dressed elderly woman in a sunbonnet standing nearby.

Keith pulled back and wagged his finger at me. “Enough of that, miss! This is a family park.”

The woman didn’t walk away, but stayed there, staring with a big grin on her face. “You’re Keith Raven,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “Would you like to take a picture with me?”

She waved her hand. “No, no, darling. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I just wanted to say I have your calendar photo on my fridge at home.”

Keith turned and walked up to her, ready for more conversation. I watched in awe as he turned on the charm, and the lady—who must have been at least eighty, if a day—melted like a girl under his attention.

“That calendar’s out of date now,” he said. “I’ll have to send you a new picture to display for your friends.”

“My daughter has epilepsy,” she said. “We appreciate all the fundraising you and those other nice boys do.”

“You’re welcome. I only wish I could do more.” He pulled out his phone and said, “If you don’t mind giving me your mailing address, I’ll put something in the mail for you.”

She fanned her face with one white-gloved hand. “If I give you my house number, you won’t show up unexpectedly, will you?”

He got a sly grin. “That depends. When’s your birthday?”

Her eyes got big and she took in a big gasp, then let out a torrent of girlish giggles. Once she calmed down a little, she was able to give her address. The woman didn’t have anything to take a photo with, but Keith insisted on getting one with his phone, for
his
collection. “On the tough days, I look at pictures like this to feel the support of my fans,” he said to her.

I used the camera on his phone and took the photo of them. The woman’s son and family came to retrieve her, and Keith insisted the son take a photo of the three of us, including me.

As I stood on one side of him, smiling for the picture, I fought down an overwhelming sense of pride. For Keith, getting a picture with me in it may have been a casual impulse, but being included meant so much to me. I remembered vividly how shut-out I’d felt by Dalton goofing around with his fangirl. This was the opposite feeling.

Once we were on our own again, in the fragrant rose garden, Keith put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Not one of these roses is as lovely as you in that purple dress.”

I pointed to some enormous, peach-pink blossoms. “Not even this one?”

“Not even. So, are you coming to dinner with my family tonight?”

“Of course,” I said. “I need to eat dinner anyway. I came to LA like so many other small-town blondes before me, hoping to catch my big break, and I think impersonating your cleaning lady is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“When you put it like that, it does sound glamorous.”

“Then tomorrow, it’s back to the old grind of putting on fancy underwear and having my picture taken.”

“What a coincidence! Me, too.”

We stopped to admire some unusual rust-hued roses with streaks of yellow. They were labeled
Dragon’s Blood
, and my sexy gardener/model was transfixed for a moment.

In the stillness, I heard my phone tremble in my purse with another text message. I was in no mood to check messages and ruin what had become a fun day, so I quickly switched it off.

Had it only been that morning that I broke up with Dalton? Had it only been three days ago I was in Beaverdale, helping bookstore customers pick out great summer beach reads? Who was this gorgeous girl in a knockout designer dress? As Keith had noted, this girl actually
was
getting checked out by other men, including sunhat-wearing dads pushing strollers. Whoever she was, I loved being her.

Keith’s parents lived in a neighborhood on the west side of LA called Mar Vista. As we drove along, I saw kids running through sprinklers, and tree-lined streets with modest, post-war bungalows.

“Except for the palm trees, this could be Washington,” I said.

“It’s a good place to grow up. We lived on the grittier side until I was ten, then we moved over, to north of Venice, which is much nicer.”

“Venice Beach?”

“I meant Venice Boulevard, but the beach is west of here. Look at you, knowing all about LA. Soon you’ll be telling me shortcuts.”

“Don’t be so sure of that. I keep getting turned around and thinking the sun’s in the wrong spot in the sky.”

Keith pulled the van over and parked on a street that looked like a nice place to call home.

“Are you ready for the Lipschitz experience?” he asked.

“I keep forgetting that’s your real last name.”

He didn’t move from his seat. “My parents worry too much about their kids. Especially about me. Can I tell you something personal?”

Uh-oh, here it comes.
“Sure.”

“I got mixed up in drugs when I was younger. I’m clean now, but working in the fashion industry isn’t without its temptations. When I started modeling, my parents acted like I was going off to war.”

Looking over at the ordinary brown house we’d parked next to, I could understand how the people who lived in such a house would be scared. You make a nice life for your family, then your kids go off in search of things that terrify you.

He continued, “They’ve been so sad lately—my parents. We’ve had some death and illness in the extended family, and when Tabitha and I split up, my mother took it even harder than me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So, I dragged you here tonight, kicking and screaming—”

“No! Fair and square, you took me on the best date today.”

He smiled, his expressive brown eyes lively. “As I was saying… I invited you here tonight because you’re the most fun person I’ve met in a long time.”

“Hah!”

“And I think seeing me with someone as warm and giving as you will make them stop worrying about me so much.”

Putting on my fake accent, I said, “I clean house real good.”

“About the housekeeper thing… my sister’s gullible, but my parents aren’t. They’ll have you figured out in five minutes.”

“Challenge accepted.”

“Okay then,” he said cheerily, jumping out of the van and running around to my side.

I was already nervous enough, but my hands started to sweat as we slowly made our way up to the front door, stopping to admire all the various shrubs and flowers in the front yard.

Some of the tall flowers were held upright with green gardener’s tape, looking tidy in a way that bordered on ridiculous, but who am I to judge? One time, I threw out a whole batch of geraniums that were purchased for my terra cotta pots, because they were pink, not red, and I really had my heart set on red.

The world is a chaotic place, our destinies shaped by chance meetings and the rash decisions of others. We are helpless against fate, so is it any wonder we stomp our feet over getting our choice of pizza toppings, and spend our free time mulching coffee grounds into our gardens, our own miniature planet earth over which we have control?

The door to the house opened, and Keith’s parents stepped out onto the front step, father and mother, handsome and beautiful, respectively.

Under my breath, I muttered, “This confirms you’re not adopted.”

We walked up to Keith’s black-haired, brown-eyed donors of photogenic traits, and I shook both of their hands.

“Mr. Lipsch—”

“Call me Ken, and this is Kendra.”

The woman gave me a friendly hug, squeezing her small boobs against my D-cups. As she pulled away, she said, “We’re Kenny Squared, Ken and Kendra. And what’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Ursula?” I looked to Keith for guidance, but he only raised his eyebrows. “I clean house,” I said.

Kendra gave me a sidelong look. “What accent would you say that is, Ursula?”

“Polish?” I bit my lip.

“My Keith would never hire a cleaning lady,” she said. “Too much of a control freak. So, what’s the real story, you two little jokers?”

Keith ruffled my hair and pulled me in close to his chest. We hadn’t even made it in the door and his mother had already figured me out. I made a note to watch myself around her.

“This is Peaches Monroe,” Keith said proudly. “She designed the clothing line I’m modeling this week.”

Kendra wrinkled her nose. “Oh. You’re still doing that?”

“He’s an incredible model,” I said. “He helped me out on set so much yesterday.”

Keith’s father waved us into the house. “Everybody, get in the house. Our business is not the street’s business.”

We all went in, and were shown to the dining room, which was around the corner from the kitchen and separated from the front room by a rounded archway.

My least favorite new acquaintance, Keith’s sister Katy, sat at the table, drinking what appeared to be white wine with ice cubes in it. She gave me a look that was so acidic, it could probably remove stubborn bathtub mildew.

“Why’d you say you were the fucking cleaning lady?” Katy spat at me.

“So you wouldn’t be jealous of my awesome career and act like a jealous twat. Oops, I guess it didn’t work.”

Keith’s father exclaimed, “Peaches! Katy! Such language. Keith, go and fetch the cayenne.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding my hands in the air. “I come into your home and immediately insult your daughter. My bad. Even though the bag of hair deserved it.”

Keith had already gone to the kitchen and returned with the cayenne pepper.

“You don’t have to do this,” Keith said to me.