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It was probably a figment of her imagination, but her ovaries were humming. She was loose-limbed and electrified at the same time. The pleasure shimmer lasted until it was replaced with a shiver as dark storm clouds racing over the city delivered fat drops of cool rain that made the pavement sizzle.
By the time she ducked into the parking garage, the sky was grumbling from the gathering summer storm. With luck, she’d make it home before the worst of it hit. Vehicle ransom paid, she sent a quick message to Evie. The SMA sexed all over my hand. Never washing it.
Her phone started bleating as she drove through the boom gate and onto the street into what was now a heavy downfall. Evie’s triumphant cackle through the hands-free speakers had to compete with the crack of lightning.
“What’s it like giving a hand job to Hollywood royalty?” Evie said.
Teela checked her rear view and signaled to change lanes. “He did call himself a fluff actor.”
“Noo. You made words together. You cow. I’m sooo jealous.”
“You’re best friends with rock stars and go out with people who get written up in gossip columns on the regular.” And she was going to be stuck in this lane till her next birthday because the traffic wasn’t moving, and the rain kept coming and now there was thunder rolling overhead.
“This is not about me, Tee. You meet famous, rich people all the time too. But not Sexiest Man Alive, uber celebrity people. This is about you and Haydn Delany’s cock.”
Evie’s musical family was legitimately famous. The famous people Teela met were the clandestine type. Wealthy corporate players and influential politicians who only courted the limelight when it suited their interests.
“I did get to feast my eyes on him,” she said, fiddling with the air conditioning to try to stop the inside of the front window from fogging up. “I did not see the cock, but if it’s as charismatic as the rest of him, I’m probably already three months pregnant, despite the two of us remining fully clothed and my no-expense-spared birth control.”
Evie hooted. “Moo. You complete cow. You really did talk to him. You’re not just making this up.”
Teela upped her wiper speed but still had to peer though the downpour. “He kissed my hand.”
“Oh, fuck me rigid. He did not. Who goes around kissing hands in the Anthropocene age? That shit went extinct generations ago.”
“You’re more ready to believe I wanked him between appetizer and main course than that he was ridiculously charming.”
“I wish. He is screaming hot. If you touched his magnificent appendage, I want to lick your fingers. Tell me everything.”
A horn sounded. The traffic went nowhere. There was water running in the gutters, a veritable stream. “I will, but this weather is a shocker, and the traffic is a mess. I don’t want to rear end someone when you shout in my ear.”
“Why would I shout?”
“Later. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Why would I shout?” Evie shouted. “You can’t leave me hanging like this. It’s un-Australian.”
“Hang on to this.” Another horn blast. It had to compete with a roll of thunder right over the top of her to be heard. “He offered me his crooked arm.”
She disconnected the call before Evie finished shout-laughing and she was still smiling when the delivery van behind slid into her, tapping her bumper and turning her car into sandwich meat as she was shoved into the stopped vehicle in front.
Other than pride, no one was hurt, but her car was a mess, with both headlights and taillights smashed. It took over two hours to sort out insurance details, wait for a tow, and fail to find a taxi or an affordable ride share car to get her home. By the time she started walking towards a cab rank she was wet through, dress a limp rag, hair plastered to her head and shoes totally ruined. Whatever magic she liked to imagine Haydn Delany had kissed into her skin was long washed away.
Until he pulled up beside her in a limo, flung open the door and said, “Miss. Carpenter. You’re very wet. Get in.”
OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOR
Reid eyed the glass in his hand. He swirled the amber liquid. This was his sixth or seventh. He wouldn’t be the only drunk loser stumbling toward a foggy San Francisco dawn. But he was probably the only one who was on his way to making his first billion before he turned thirty.
Whatever the count, the scowling hostess knew by now to keep ’em coming.
Was it a month or longer this had been his routine? Drink till he was a swallow off face-planting the sticky table of the booth he’d made his new home. It felt like years since he’d had an ordinary life; no, not ordinary, there was nothing ordinary about his life, except that it was gone.
That was shit ordinary.
He’d never gotten drunk on bourbon until the night his life came to a dead stop, and then getting drunk and staying that way seemed like the only decent hack left in the world, even though it made him a miserable bastard.
Right now, all he cared about was the contents of this glass hitting his throat and seeing Lux on stage.
