The Naughty Corner (16 page)

Then he spoke, and she let him have his say in the darkness. “I worked at a local movie theater when I was sixteen. The projectionist was a woman. She was twenty-five or something, a lot older than me, and pretty in a Lucy Lawless kind of way, all buffed from hefting those reels onto the projectors. I liked to go up in the booth when things were slow and watch her change reels. She rarely spoke, she just did her work and let me watch. One night when we were showing a sexy movie with some real hot stuff going on, she sat down in a chair, braced her feet on the projector, pulled her skirt up, and played with herself.”

Lola bit her lip. She was wet all over again just imagining the emotions of a raging hormonal teenager while a sexy older woman let him watch. His surprise, heart in throat. Then his lower region suddenly going berserk.

She didn’t want to interrupt his story, but she had to know. “Did you touch yourself?”

“I only watched.” He laughed softly. “But I couldn’t stop jerking off when I got home.” He stroked her hair away from the scarf. “I went back again and again. Sometimes she would masturbate. Depended on the movie. Her mood. I don’t know. But I was like an addict.”

Beneath her, he was hard again. Lola didn’t resist this time. Tossing aside the scarf, she climbed into his lap. He shifted so she could straddle him. Moonlight through the trees glittered in the dark pools of his eyes.

“She was working late one night. She had to pack up all the reels because a new movie was coming the next day. I stayed to help her after everyone else was gone.”

Lola put her hand between her legs to stroke him. He still wore the condom. She pulled it off, wanting the feel of hot skin against her palm.

“One minute we were packing reels, the next she was leaning up against the projector, her skirt over her hips. I think that’s why she wore skirts all the time, easy access.”

His face was dark, his cock hard, his voice soft. And Lola wanted, needed. “Give me another condom.”

One materialized in front of her. She ripped it open, rolled it on, then slid him deep inside, the fit tight, their bodies vacuum-packed together.

“Tell me everything,” she whispered.

* * *

SHE SEDUCED HIM WITH HER BODY AND HIS OWN MEMORIES. HANDS
on her hips, he surged inside her, then leaned his head back on the tree to savor her features.

Her long black hair floated around her face, her brown eyes as dark as the night. Her lips were luscious and plump with the little bites of ecstasy and excitement she gave them.

Tell me everything.
He’d never told a soul. Not even Bettina. He was sixteen. In California, it was technically statutory rape because of the difference in age. And there were the things she’d made him do to her, the things she’d done to him. It had been a secret he’d never wanted to share, a secret he’d held close on cold nights in Bettina’s even colder bed.

Tell me everything.

He needed to tell Lola while he was buried deep inside her.

“All she said was, ‘Spank me.’”

Lola rose slowly, twisted slightly, and took him deep once more with equal deliberation. She was achingly tight around him. His fingers spasmed against her hip.

“There was just this nicely shaped ass begging. So I swatted it.”

Lola rotated her hips, squeezed her inner muscles. She put her head back, arched, drove him mad, came forward again, and gripped his chin. “Then what?”

For a moment, he couldn’t remember. He swallowed. “She was wet. She got wetter every time I slapped her. I was so hard, I thought I’d come in my jeans. But she just wanted more. Harder. My fingers were all over her, slipping in all her cream.”

Lola rocked on him, a gentle yet relentless rhythm that almost made his eyes roll back in his head.

But he kept talking. “She spread her legs, and I knew she wanted me to go deeper. So with every swat, I slipped inside her, a little more every time.”

His hips moved on their own, meeting Lola’s, thrusting. Her fingernails dug into his arms as she anchored herself. Need forced a grimace to his lips. He didn’t want to talk; he only wanted to fuck her, now.

“Don’t stop,” she ordered.

He had to obey, closing his eyes, jamming his head back against the tree so that he could concentrate on what she wanted. “She came hard, practically gushing all over my fingers. And she shouted dirty words I didn’t even know existed.”

Lola wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, held him, pumped him, her nipples grazing his chest as she moved.

He was here and now with her. And he was sixteen again, feeling the need, the uncontrollable emotions. “Then all of a sudden, she turned, threw herself at me, knocking us both to the floor. I don’t even know how she did it, but she shoved my T-shirt up over my head, trapping my arms in it, blindfolding me with it.” He remembered the utter helplessness, the fear. And all that pent-up desire he’d been feeling for weeks while she teased.

Just as Lola teased him, rocking, rolling, slipping, sliding against him.

“Her hands were tearing at my jeans. And she just fucked me like that, so hard my dick hurt the next day. And I came inside her.”

His eyeballs ached. His cock throbbed. And he needed her, rolled with her, surfaced on top of her. “I was a virgin.” He gasped with his first thrust, her legs high around his waist, taking him deep. “And I was so goddamn worked up, I just shot inside her in two seconds.”

“Was it as good as this?” she murmured.

“Fuck yes.” He pounded her into the ground without regard. He was past caring. “I couldn’t see.” He grunted, drove deep again and again. “And it was so fucking hot . . . so exciting . . . so out of control.”

He was gone, spending deep inside her, shaking with the intensity of it, eyes squeezed shut, shooting stars behind his lids, and the tight grip of her body making it last forever.

He came back to earth, his face buried in her hair, her words whispered into his ear. “What happened after that?”

“She did things to me all that year.”

“Things?” Lola always needed more explanation.

“Kinky things. She had me tie her to the projector. She brought a paddle. I had to use it on her. Sometimes she wanted to tie me up. She liked to pretend she was raping me.”

“That’s kind of hot.” She rubbed against him. “And?”

“She got another job, moved on.”

Lola considered it all for a moment. “That’s why you like what we do. Being in control and powerful, then out of control and powerless. The two together.” Her voice seemed far away. “You were sixteen. It was a formative experience. You’re always trying to re-create it.”

Maybe. He’d never told anyone, not even his friends on the football team. To share it would have destroyed the pure carnal nature of it. To tell would have broken its spell.

But why hadn’t he told Bettina years later?

And why had he made the revelation to Lola now? Gray wasn’t sure he was ready to examine the question.

“I must be hurting you.” He’d damn near collapsed on her during his explosion and had no idea how long they’d lain there before she’d spoken. Thank God, the thick layer of leaves had protected her back and butt as he’d taken her. Not that he’d thought about that in the moment.

“I like the weight of a man on me.”

He couldn’t see her eyes, her face. His body blocked out all the light. “It’s time to go. You have to pick up the boys.”

She snorted. “Heckle and Jeckle are more than capable of taking care of themselves.”

They probably were. He wasn’t so sure about himself. He needed to think about the revelations he’d just made, the things that had come to him as he was buried deep inside her. He wanted to understand why she, of all women, had drawn those things out of him. Why she made him lose control. And why she made him like it.

* * *

HE DROPPED LOLA AT THE PARK AND RIDE, WATCHING HER DRIVE
away as he turned on his phone. Four missed calls and three messages. He listened to Bettina’s rants about why he wasn’t answering his phone, then erased them.

He called her back only to make sure Rafe was all right.

“Where the hell have you been?” she snapped. “I called and called.”

When they were married, she’d gotten pissy if he didn’t answer his phone right away. But they weren’t married anymore, she’d kicked him out, and he owed her no explanations. “I was busy.”

“What if something had happened to your son and I needed you?”

“Did something happen to Rafe?” It hadn’t. Or she would have started with that.

“No.”

“Then why did you call me four times?” He’d wanted to savor the memory of Lola, but the lassitude of magnificent sex had faded the moment he’d heard Bettina’s messages. Now there was only his ex-wife’s harpy tone in his ear.

“I wanted to remind you about your promise to get him a car.”

He watched headlights flash along up on the freeway above the Park and Ride. “I don’t need a reminder.” It occurred to him that she was checking up on him, trying to see if he had a woman. Rafe must have said something to her about believing Gray had someone with him the other night.

The question was why Bettina should care.

Why, why, why? He sounded like Lola. Maybe he’d never really searched for answers. Sex between them before Rafe had been good, sex before marriage even better. She’d played a few of his games, though she’d never totally gotten into them. She was nothing like Lola.

“Well, you can pick him up in the morning and take him to football camp.” Her voice droned instructions in his ear.

Normally Rafe would have been with him tonight, but he’d wanted to go out with his friends. There was always an excuse to spend less than Gray’s allotted time every other weekend. He’d always hoped
this
was the weekend they’d make a breakthrough. It hadn’t happened yet.

“Yes, Bettina.” He no longer cared what he was agreeing to.

“Fine. Don’t wake me up when you get here in the morning.”

There was blessed silence in the car. Ten minutes ago, there’d been Lola, her sweet scent, her sexy sounds. Her questions.

She made him think, made him remember, made him ask. How had things gone so wrong with his marriage, with Rafe? Sure, Bettina lost her sex drive after childbirth. But they’d been civil to each other. They’d cared for Rafe. They’d been good parents together. She didn’t like his traveling, of course. Then she’d truly gotten a bug up her butt during one of his London trips.

Bettina always picked him up from the airport, a habit they’d started early and never broken. He’d had a long flight from London, and he’d stood out in the diesel fumes and the noise and the crush of travelers for over an hour waiting for her. His cell phone had run out of juice in London and he’d forgotten his charger, but he’d sent her an email before he left. At SFO, he’d managed to find a pay phone, called a couple of times, left messages. She hadn’t answered. He’d gotten worried. She could have had an accident. What if she’d had Rafe with her? His panic had risen. He’d taken a cab home, only to find her watching the evening news. When he asked where the hell she’d been, she’d said that if he couldn’t bother to answer his phone while he was away, then she couldn’t bother to pick him up. She hadn’t believed that he’d forgotten his charger. Even when he’d shown it to her upstairs in the bedside drawer, she’d accused him of leaving it behind on purpose.

The London trip was the moment her anger with his traveling had boiled over. It was the first time she accused him of screwing other women while he was away. After that, it had only been a matter of time, eighteen months to be exact. Life fell apart, and his son stopped loving him.

Now, as CEO, he traveled far less. It was too late. He was still trying to pick up the pieces. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to.

But tonight with Lola had reminded him how things were supposed to be, how much better they could be.

14

DAMMIT, GRAY HAD CLAMMED UP AGAIN. AFTER THAT FABULOUS
sex, he’d shut her out. As if the fact that he’d revealed too much to her had sent him running.

Lola rolled her eyes. Men. She’d never understand them. She knew what Charlotte would say.
Just stop trying to understand them and go with the flow. Enjoy.
Of course, Charlotte was right. This wasn’t a relationship, the sex was fabulous, and that’s really all that mattered. She shouldn’t want anything more. That made her too dependent on him, and of course, dependence led to disaster.

On the console between the seats, her phone chirped at her. There was a new voicemail. Dammit, she should have checked before driving off. It had to be one of the twins. She hadn’t wanted to take the phone with her on Gray’s little joy ride.

Few cars passed her on the road as she headed down the hill, and no one was behind her. All right, she’d have to be illegal for three seconds while she hit the voicemail key, then tapped in her pin. With that done, the car’s Bluetooth took over, and the woman’s electronic voice told her she had one message. It started playing automatically.

“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”

Lola almost slammed on the brakes, and her senses heightened with an adrenaline rush. The voice was deep, then it was high, childlike, then feminine, a man, then a woman.

“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.”

The initial loudness of the voice had scared the crap out of her, but her pulse was returning to normal and she punched the Off button on the Bluetooth, shutting the message down in mid
Bitch
. The words had been almost unreal, different tones as if several people were shouting. Then again it could have been one person changing his or her voice.

Dead flowers. Now a message. Maybe it wasn’t some girl the twins had harassed. And George definitely knew her cell number. Could he be
that
upset because she’d turned him down?

The light ahead turned yellow and she almost punched the gas to make it through, thought better at the last minute and slammed on the brakes. Her purse flew to the floor on the passenger side. The phone went somewhere under the seat. Dammit. She felt blindly with her hand until the light turned green again. Headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. She had to move.