Chapter 6
L ogan wasn’t sure what had come over him and why he had FaceTimed Melanie two nights ago, but it was done and he couldn’t take it back.
The look on her face when he had said that this was not a recent development for him was enough to keep him going for days. And he was going to need it.
The trip was going to take longer than he’d originally planned. Now that the shoot in Puerto Rico was over, he was headed to New York to meet with a few gallery owners.
They weren’t willing to sign him without first meeting him and while he understood, it sucked. He was ready to go home and he was ready to see Melanie.
And touch her.
And kiss her.
And make love to her.
The last one was what was keeping him up at night. He had no control over his mind and as soon as his eyes closed, visions of her took over. And most of them were not anything he could ever repeat.
He’d never even done half the things he imagined doing to her in his mind. But something told him she would be game for whatever he threw at her.
He was hoping to only be in New York for a day or two. But it wasn’t really up to him.
Landing in New York, he headed straight to the hotel Dave had booked for him to shower and change. He was meeting a gallery owner and Dave for dinner and had a limited amount of time to get there.
After his shower, he skipped shaving because he didn’t want to be late. He needed to make a good impression on this woman to secure his future.
Arriving at the restaurant, Dave flagged him down.
“Logan,” he said, shaking his hand, “This is Missy Blake.”
Logan turned and shook her hand. She was younger than he’d assumed. Probably around his age. And, if you liked the caked-on makeup, business suit, showing lots of cleavage type, she fit the bill.
“Missy, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“Same goes.” She sat and he followed suit. “Dave has been talking my ear off about you for days now.”
Logan gave a small laugh that, those who knew him well, knew it wasn’t real. “I hope all good stuff.”
He hated this part of being ‘famous’. The part where you had to schmooze and fake your way through meetings with people you’d never be friends with in real life.
“Everything he told me was good,” Missy cooed. “Although he never said how handsome you were.”
Logan wanted to cringe at her obvious attempt at flirting but somehow he held it back. “If he had, I’d be concerned.”
“Hey now,” Dave spoke up. “I am completely confident in my manhood to say when a man is good looking. Maybe I just don’t think you’re all that?”
“If that’s the case, you need to get your eyes checked.” Missy was now blatantly checking him out. Her eyes showing her interest.
He wanted this meeting over sooner rather than later but knew that he was in no position to pressure her. Thank God for Dave.
“Why don’t you tell Logan what you are thinking for your gallery?”
Missy spent the next twenty minutes explaining her thoughts and what she was looking for with his photos. It sounded great. She would show several of his photos each month in exchange for him doing one full show a year.
That would keep him in Cedarville full-time, only needing to travel for the one show.
Missy continued her flirting assault while she spoke. Playing with her hair, reaching across the table to touch his hand. It was so obvious that he wondered how he’d ever fallen for anything of the sort in the past.
When the meeting ended, Dave made a beeline out of the restaurant, claiming he had late drinks with another client. If Logan had to guess, drinks with a client meant sex with a woman.
He and Missy both waited on the sidewalk for a taxi and when one pulled up he indicated that she should go ahead.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Her voice was low as her eyes flicked down his body.
He rocked back on his heels. “I’m actually seeing someone.” He knew that it wasn’t the flat-out truth since he and Mel weren’t together yet. But with a woman like Missy, you had to shut her down fast and couldn’t give her any leeway.
“I won’t tell,” she practically purred.
Taking a deep breath he said, “Listen, Missy, you’re a beautiful woman but I really prefer not to mix business with pleasure.”
Her face went from flirty to angry. “You’re turning me down?”
“Afraid so. I just don’t think it would be right.”
“What if that’s not an option?”
“I don’t think I understand?”
She slammed the door to the taxi and closed the space between them. “I don’t have to sign you to a contract with my gallery, Logan. I’m thinking you need me more than I need you.”
He wasn’t a naive guy. He’d heard of this type of thing before even if it had never happened to him. “I could go elsewhere. There are other galleries.”
She ran a hand down the front of his shirt. “Are you sure about that? One call from me and no one will take you on.”
He’d stayed calm as long as he could but his temper came boiling up. “Are seriously saying that if I don’t have sex with you, you will what, have me blackballed?”
“Smart and pretty,” she said.
For a second, he thought he was going to be sick. He needed this. Needed a gallery to pick him up so that he could stop traveling so much. Without this, he didn’t know what he would do with his life.
But none of that was worth prostituting himself.
He took a step back, forcing her hand to fall. “Do what you have to do, but I won’t be sleeping with you and I won’t be signing with you.”
He turned and walked away, and when he did, he heard her curse behind him.
He reined in his temper as he walked. The nerve of her to think that he would have sex with her in order for him to get a showing at her gallery.
Removing his phone from his pocket he dialed up Dave. He wasn't at all surprised when he got his voicemail.
“Dave, fucking call me back. Now.”
Shoving the phone back in his pocket, he took a deep breath.
If Missy did what she said she was going to do, he would not be able to get another show at any other gallery in New York.
She had a reputation for people listening to her. Probably why she thought he would just go ahead and sleep with her.
Back at his hotel, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he would do if he couldn’t get into a gallery. Sure, he had plenty of money from all the years of working photoshoots for big magazines. But he didn’t just want to sit on his ass in Cedarville. He wanted to take pictures, but more importantly, he wanted those pictures to be seen.
The biggest problem though of not having a gallery back him, was that he wouldn’t feel worthy of Melanie. She deserved a man who worked hard.
When his phone rang, he looked at the flashing screen and saw that it was Dave.
“What the fuck, man,” he said when he answered.
Calm, Dave said, “Fill me in quick. Missy has been calling me for the last thirty minutes.”
“She said if I didn’t sleep with her, she wouldn’t sign the contract.”
“Fuck me,” Dave swore.
“Not only that but she said she would tell everyone else not to sign me too.”
Logan heard Dave sigh into the phone. “Let me try and do some damage control, but Logan, I gotta tell you, she has the pull to make this happen.”
That’s what he was afraid of. “Just do what you can.”
“Did you ever think that maybe you should just give her what she wants?”
“You want me to pimp myself out for a contract? I thought you were my friend?”
“I am your friend. That’s why I’m telling you this. Sometimes you need to put aside your morals to get ahead.”
“If that’s the case, then maybe I should consider stepping away from this.” He hung up with Dave before he could answer.
Opening the mini bar, he grabbed a beer and a tiny bottle of rum. Getting drunk was the only thing he could think of that would make this go away. He knew it wasn’t a long-term solution but for now, it would work.
Two beers and three mini bottles of rum later, he was finally starting to relax. But relaxing meant thinking of Melanie and thinking of her made him remember that he didn’t have a job.
Drinking might not have been the best idea.
Grabbing another beer, he found his phone and without thinking, FaceTimed Melanie again.
She had already answered before he realized what he was doing.
“Hey,” she said, smiling at him.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Hi.” He glanced at the TV and saw that it was after eleven. “Sorry to call so late.”
“I don’t mind. Well, that’s a lie, but since I miss you, I’ll let it slide.”
“That’s generous of you.”
“Are you still in New York?”
Her words shocked him. He was positive that he hadn’t told her he was going to New York. “How did you know I was in New York?”
“You told Brandon, he told Leah and she told me. Was it a secret?” Her expression which had started out happy changed to unsure.
“Not a secret,” he assured her. “Just something I was trying.”
“Wanna tell me about it?”
“Not really,” he said. “I’d rather you tell me – or maybe show me – what you are wearing?”
“Logan Graham! I am not having phone sex with you.”
“Why not.” His half-drunken state made him hornier than he could remember in recent history. And listening to her sleepy voice had his dick already hard and ready to go.
“For one, you can see me and that’d be weird.”
“I’ll just hang up and call you then.” Hitting end, he waited a second before redialing.
She answered immediately. “What the hell, Logan.”
“What’s the second reason?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said ‘for one’ that means you have another reason.”
She sighed into his ear and he heard it all the way to his dick. “Do you really want our first time to be over the phone?”
She had a point but right then and there his mind wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Partly due to the alcohol and partly because of her.
“Will you please just tell me what you are wearing?” He knew he was pushing and that in the morning he might regret this whole conversation, but right now, in this moment, he could think of nothing but Melanie.
“Shorts and a t-shirt,” she said.
“Any special t-shirt?”
He heard shuffling and wondered what she was doing. “Just an old one.”
She was purposefully being elusive. “Why won’t you tell me what’s on it?”
“If you must know, it’s an old Cedarville High tee.”
Why would she care if he knew that? Unless... “Is it MY Cedarville High shirt?”
When he came home after college to pack up before he moved away, he was getting rid of a ton of clothes he didn’t want anymore. When he threw his Cedarville High School t-shirt into the donation pile, Mel had grabbed it and taken it for herself. She said that hers had gotten lost and she liked having one.
“Maybe,” she said in a voice that was tentative.
“Do you always sleep in that shirt,” he asked as his hand snaked down under the covers to grip his hard dick. Just the image of her in his old shirt had him on the verge of release.
“Why are you making this a big deal, Logan? It’s just a shirt.”
“It’s my shirt and you are wearing it to bed where you have sex dreams.”
“I don’t have sex dreams.” He could almost hear her eyes roll.
“Shame,” he said. His hand was now moving up and down of its own accord on his cock. “Could you maybe take off the shorts so that you are wearing nothing but the shirt and underwear?”
She gave a little laugh. “If I take off the shorts, I will only be wearing the shirt.”
He growled into the phone and gripped his cock harder. “Do it, “ he said more forcefully than he’d wanted. Her in nothing but his old t-shirt was an image he was never going to get out of his head. Add to it, no panties, and holy shit.
“I already did,” she whispered, her breath hitching.
That’s the moment that he knew he wasn’t the only one touching himself. That shuffling he had heard moments ago, had been her, stripping off her shorts.
She was laying in her bed, bare, touching herself.
Knowing that his release was imminent, he wanted to make sure she was right there with him. “If I was there with you, I would have my head between your legs so fast.”
“Yes,” she gave a low moan.
“My tongue would lap at you like an ice cream cone on a warm summer's day. You’d scream my name as I pushed two fingers inside you, pumping hard and fast.” His fist was moving faster on his cock.
“More,” she said, breathing heavily.
“And just when you couldn’t take anymore, I would rise up over you and slide my cock into your warm, wet pussy.”
The image that he was trying to put into her head, pushed him over and he came, warm liquid pulsing over his hand and stomach.
“Fuck yeah,” she groaned, her panting faster. “YES, YES, YES,” she shouted.
He waited for her breathing to slow, his own following suit. “Wasn’t that better than waiting?”
“Having an orgasm while picturing you is something I do every night. So maybe next time, you can make sure you are here in person.”
He should have been shocked at her admission but nothing about Melanie Hughes shocked him anymore. “Give me two days and then you can have the live version.”
“Promises, promises.”