12. Is The Hot Dog Water Off The Table?
Chapter twelve
Is The Hot Dog Water Off The Table?
I f procrastination was an Olympic sport, I would’ve never won.
Mainly because I would’ve put off attempting to qualify until it was too late and missed the deadline.
I was not an “eat the frog” kind of person. The worst tasks were always saved for last like I thought maybe they would go away if I waited long enough. And I could wait . When I didn’t want to do something, I could talk myself into doing literally anything else.
So I wasn’t quite sure what it said about me that I not only started figuring out how to deal with the date I’d lied about to my dad about only a couple of minutes after Kimberlee left my room, I was frustrated that I had to wait until she and my dad went to church a little while later to do anything about it.
I was impatient enough that as soon as I heard voices in the downstairs foyer, I pushed my bedroom door open and tiptoed into the hallway so I could leave the second they were gone.
“—will not soften discipline just because it seems unpalatable to you,” my dad said. He was speaking in rapid French, but I could still catch most of the conversation.
“It was cruel , Max,” Kimberlee replied, her French just as clipped and rapid. “I am not talking about discipline, I am talking about—”
“It was not cruel. Her behaviour was unacceptable and somehow Nellie has never learned that her actions have consequences. And regardless, we have discussed this before. You do not get to tell me how to handle my daughter.”
“I do when you use me in your so-called discipline,” Kimberlee snapped. “When you make me stand there as if I’m going to agree with you that taking her things away is normal. When you disrespect her boundaries on my behalf and do not even have the decency to tell me!”
My dad didn’t say anything.
“Do you believe that is reasonable? Do you know how you hurt her with all that? How you hurt me by using me like that? You are acting like the person people warned me about and I told you I would not tolerate that.”
Oh, shit .
There was more silence, but this time, Kimberlee didn’t break it. My best guess was that my dad was giving her the cold, finalizing stare he used on all the women he’d been with when they dared to contradict him, either by argument or by strengthening into the kind of woman who would stand up to him. It was a look that made people retreat, like standing in the glacial aura pouring off him would turn them into brittle ice sculptures he’d shatter half a breath later when he dismissed them from his life. And he’d given that look and that dismissal to women for far, far less than what Kimberlee was doing and saying.
But apparently, he really liked Kimberlee or something.
“I did not use you,” he finally said. “I would not and will not do that.”
No one could see me, but I knew the shock was showing on my face all the same.
“My attempt to provide you with what you wanted may have been misguided, but I was not using you.”
“Max—”
“Please,” he said. “Kimberlee.”
There was more silence, then the closing of the front door. I frowned, slightly frustrated that I hadn’t heard anything more and desperate to know what the hell had just happened, but I didn’t have time for that. If I wanted to be gone by the time they were back from church, I had to go now .
Spinning around, I grabbed the bags I’d packed with the things my dad hadn’t taken away and raced down the stairs. Slipping my shoes on, I rushed as slowly as I could outside, my heart slamming in my chest as I threw my bags in the car and tried to appear nonchalant.
Then I closed my trunk, locked the car, and turned to walk across the stretch of lawn between my dad’s house and the Marchands’.
Before I could even knock, the front door opened. I worried for half a second that it wouldn’t be him, but JP was standing there, his hair wet like he’d just gotten out of the shower—thank God for that—and wearing a perfectly fitted polo shirt tucked into a tan pair of chino shorts.
And, of course, a brown leather fucking belt.
His typical jovial, cocky, infuriating smile crossed his face as he saw me striding purposefully towards him. “Hey, Nel—”
I didn’t let him finish before grabbing his shoulders and pulling him in to kiss me.
“—lie,” he mumbled against my mouth. “Shit, what are—”
I interrupted him by slipping my tongue into his mouth. Another noise of disbelief escaped before he kissed me back. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, which were very helpful for when I pushed my body against his to make him stumble back through the doorway into the foyer of his house, praying that JP hadn’t lied about having the house to himself when I’d texted him to see if he was home.
I mean, I wouldn’t have put it past him. He would’ve thought it was funny, probably, if I’d knocked on the door and his mom or dad or, God forbid, Anne-Marie had answered, making me scramble to explain what I was doing there. And I’d hesitated when he said he was home alone, since I’d planned to ask if we could go to the parking lot we usually hooked up in. My dad’s assistant, Pierre, was still downstairs, doing some cleaning or tidying or something, so there was always a chance he’d see me.
But I knew Anne-Marie and Remy had stayed at his place after last night’s benefit. And I knew Della and Mr. Marchand were probably at church already, too. Which just left Marc-Andre unaccounted for. So I’d decided to risk it and luckily for both of us, JP hadn’t been lying.
As soon as the front door swung shut, I let go of his shoulders and shoved my hands between our bodies. JP chuckled as I pulled the end of his belt through the buckle.
“Babe, it’s been at most a day and a half since you got laid,” he said. “How are you already this desperate?”
It wasn’t a complaint. I didn’t think so, anyway. His hands were almost as busy as mine, sliding down my sides so he could push his fingers beneath the hem of my t-shirt. An involuntary shiver ran through me, almost like electricity was dancing from the tips of his fingers to my skin, but I still didn’t say anything.
He tried to push those fingertips further up my shirt after I got his belt undone, dipping down to capture my lips. I let him kiss me, but nudged his hands away so I could get to the waistband of his shorts. He tried to get his hand up my shirt again and I shoved his hands away harder before pushing on his chest. A startled laugh puffed against my mouth as I made him turn, switching places so I could push him against the front door.
“Nell,” he said through his chuckles. “What are—”
And then whatever he was going to say turned into a throaty, almost breathless noise. Probably because it had only taken one smooth movement for me to pop the button on his shorts open, another to pull the zipper, and a third to tug his boxers down and free his cock before dropping to my knees in front of him.
“Holy fuck, what—ah.” He grunted as I wrapped my lips around his semi-erect cock. “Jeez, Nellie. You— ugh …”
I could feel his eyes on me, his cock twitching in my mouth and thickening against my tongue as I sucked him. He groaned again, his hand pushing my hair back again before he threaded his fingers through it. A hiss of pleasure left his lips a moment later, his hips jerking forward as his tip hit the back of my throat. I swallowed around it, moving forward until my nose pressed against his pelvis.
“ Fuck ,” he grunted. “Holy sh- shit .”
I didn’t look up until he was fully stiff, my lips stretched around his shaft as I started bobbing my head. He wasn’t looking at me when I did; he’d tilted his head back, resting against the door heavily as he relaxed into the blowjob. His breath came in deep inhales that weren’t quite gasps but still betrayed how good I was making him feel.
And fuck if that wasn’t so goddamn hot.
That was all I focused on. How much I liked listening to his breath as I sucked his cock. How he was so hard I could feel his heartbeat with my tongue. How he pushed his hips forward, making heat rush through my body and my nipples harden in my bra because I knew he couldn’t stop himself from doing it.
I didn’t think about anything else. Not about how angry I was with my dad or how hurt I was or why I was on my knees attempting to give the best blowjob of both my life and JP’s. I focused solely on him, on how he felt, how he tasted, how his hand felt so good on my head and how I almost wanted to reach down and slip my hand into my own shorts because fuck .
Fuck, this shouldn’t have been turning me on so much.
It shouldn’t have been turning me on at all .
Wet noises echoed the foyer as I bobbed my head. JP’s fingers tightened whenever I did something he particularly liked, which was often, and by the time his stomach started tensing like he was trying to stop himself from writhing, he had a consistent fistful of hair clenched in his hand.
“Nellie,” he mumbled. “Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. ”
He finally opened his eyes and looked down, watching as I spoiled his dick with my mouth. His eyebrows knitted together, an expression that wasn’t pained as much as it was pleasure.
“Look at you,” he muttered. “Look at you fucking me with your mouth. You’re— ugh .”
He shuddered as I shifted my head back and forth, like I was trying to work his cock even further down my throat.
“Nellie, you—" I cupped his balls and added the pressure of a gentle, careful squeeze. "—ah fu-ucking crisse d’ fucking ciboire goddamn tabarnak! ”
I almost laughed. I was pretty sure I’d never done anything that made JP swear in French before, let alone let out a string of mixed French and English curses that I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard anyone say before.
His other hand found the back of my head, grabbing another fistful of hair, and I knew. I knew he was about to groan, and I knew it was going to be staggered and stilted and desperate, and I relaxed as much as I could because I knew we were almost at the inevitable moment when he would shove his cock the rest of the way down my throat.
“Nellie,” he gasped. “Babe. I—”
He grunted again and a moment later, his cock pulsed. I tasted the first drops of his cum before he pushed my head down, holding me in place as he emptied himself in my throat, my eyes stinging with tears as the urge to choke fought with the physical limitations of doing so.
When he finally loosened his grip on my hair, I pulled back, gasping for breath as a mix of saliva and cum dripped onto my chin.
“F-Fuck,” he panted. “Sorry.”
I ran the back of my hand over my mouth before glancing up and grinning. “You’d think with how many times we’ve done this, you’d figure out you can stop apologizing.”
He laughed, the sound still breathless, and reached down to help me to my feet before pulling his pants and boxers up. “Right. Because as if it wasn’t enough that you stomped over and sucked me off like you were cheating on me with my own dick, you also think gagging on it is hot .”
“Yeah, well…”
He chuckled again and finished buckling his belt, then dipped his head down and kissed me. I let that kiss linger, though not long enough for him to start returning the favour before looking up at him through my eyelashes.
“So,” I said. “I have a favour to ask.”
I had never seen JP laugh so hard before. Not even the time when I’d baa’ed at him after he told me I sounded like a goat when I came.
“I swear you should’ve been a lawyer,” he said, still chuckling. “Like really, babe. You’d be so good at it.”
“No thanks. I might be a sleazebag, but you’re living proof I’m not enough of one to be a lawyer.”
“I’d tell you to suck my dick, but you just did, so…” He kissed me again, his smile still on his lips. “Alright. What’s the favour?”
“I need you to be my date for the Diamond Gala.”
I said it the same way I would’ve pulled the first wax strip off my legs after a long, hairy winter: without thinking too much about what I was doing so I couldn’t chicken out, and as fast as I could because if I did chicken out, it would be ten times more painful. And much like the expression I made when I looked at that first wax strip full of hair, JP was staring at me with a mix of fascinated horror and concern, the smile having been ripped off his face at the same time I’d spoken.
“Uh… what did—”
“I know,” I said. “It’s ridiculous for me to ask. It’s… this… this thing”—I motioned between us—“is not a dating or dating-adjacent arrangement and you told me the other day that you didn’t want to go to stuff like this and I get that. I swear I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t desperate.”
“I’m so flattered,” he said dryly.
“You know what I mean.” I bit my lip. “Please. I really need help.”
He looked over my shoulder. “Nellie, I… Look, the Diamond Gala isn’t for a while yet. You have time to find someone else.”
“It’s not time that’s the problem,” I said.
He sighed, the sound almost aggravated. “There’s really, honestly no one else you could ask?”
“No one else my dad will be okay with.”
There was no mistaking the absolute horror on his face as his eyes snapped back to mine. “You told your dad ?!”
“Not… no. I mean, yes, but not about—” It was so uncommon for me to get flustered, it took me a moment to realize that’s what was happening. “I told him you’d agreed to it. And after what happened last night, there’s literally no one else he’ll be okay with.”
“What happened last night?”
Right. Anne-Marie hadn’t come home yet. So he didn’t know.
“I, uh… couldn’t find another date,” I said. “So I might’ve… dressed Sydney up in a tuxedo and drew a mustache on her and introduced her to everyone as Sid Cunnilinginton the Third.”
JP pressed his lips together. “And you thought your dad—”
“—would be less mad about that than if I showed up alone,” I said.
His laugh slipped out. “Oh God. I almost wish I’d seen that.” He flicked his eyes to mine pointedly. “Not enough to actually go to a benefit, mind you.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck .
I’d really hoped the blowjob would be enough. And if not the blowjob, mentioning that my dad wouldn’t be okay with any other date. I really, really hadn’t wanted to tell him the last bit because it would go one of two ways: either I’d feel bad that I’d guilted him into agreeing, or he would reveal he was as bad as the rest of them.
But I didn’t have much choice.
“If you don’t, my dad says I have to go with Clinton,” I said. “No one else.”
JP stared at me.
Then he closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and groaned defeatedly. “Damnit, Nellie. It had to be that piece of shit, didn’t it?”
“His dad told my dad he was going to pull his investments or something,” I said. “Because Clinton was insulted that I took Syd instead of agreeing to go with him. And because of that, my dad also didn’t get to meet with some other rich person who might want to invest with him, so that’s entirely my fault, too.”
“And your dad thinks you going with Clinton will fix that,” he said, not as a question but as a statement.
“Yes.”
“He knows about Clinton and what’s been said about him, right?”
“He says there’s no proof so there’s nothing to worry about.”
JP studied me for a moment, then sighed again. “Drinking the old hot dog water from La Belle Provence isn’t on the table to get me out of this?”
“I’d be right there chugging it with you if I thought it would work.”
“And you don’t think my sister will lose her fucking mind if she sees us together?”
“She’ll be planning the wedding before dessert,” I said.
He half-laughed, though it was more of a huff. Looking back at me, his eyes darkened into an accusatory glare.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said. “Don’t think I don’t know.”
He wasn’t going to agree.
Fuck.
Fuck .
I almost threw all dignity aside. I almost begged. I almost gritted my teeth and got on my knees again and apologized for bringing him into this, even though I hated apologizing more than I hated begging. I almost promised him anything he wanted.
I almost cried. And no, not to guilt him even more than I already had, but just because…
Because fuck .
Thankfully, I hesitated for the brief moment it took to force my chin to stop trembling. Because that’s when JP’s glare flickered into a roguish smirk, a glimmer appearing in his eyes as his teeth raked over his lower lip.
“What do I get out of this?” he asked.
I flicked my eyes down, then back up. “I just sucked your cock.”
“I can get that from you anytime.”
“Was it better or worse than the one you got when you agreed to go to La Nuit Rose with Chantel?”
A laugh escaped his lips. “You’re asking me to compare?”
“Well, you said it was insane, but did she make you swear in French and refer to it as… what was it? Cheating on you with your own dick?”
“Had I known it would be used against me, I would’ve never said that.”
“Not my problem. You should’ve had better representation.”
Another laugh made him shake his head. “Alright. Your admittedly exceptional blowjob can be a retainer for the favour. The actual doing of the favour, though…”
It was my turn to let a laugh escape. “You’re such a fucking lawyer.”
“And you’re fucking a lawyer you want a favour from.” He half-shrugged, a nonchalant expression on his face. “Those are the terms, babe.”
“What is it you want, then?”
I didn’t think I’d ever be quite sure what went through JP’s head at that moment. If he was being flippant. If he was trying to pick something that would make me decline so he didn’t have to go through with being my date. Or if he was testing the waters to see how far I’d go. Because even then, even as his eyes trailed down my body with so much heat I could almost feel it and as his tongue poked out to wet his lips, even as his eyes flicked back up, his eyebrow twitching to reveal the gleam hidden away behind the blue of his pupils, I doubted he actually meant it as anything more than a joke.
“I don’t think it’ll matter,” he said. “You won’t say yes.”
“How would you know that if you don’t tell me?”
His mouth twitched. “Because I know you.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do. Tell me.”
“Mmm… you sure?”
I folded my arms. “Stop being a bastard about it.”
A smirk tugged the corner of his lip up, giving a lopsided wickedness to his face. “But you’re sure? Really sure, babe?”
“I’m really, really, really sure, bastard.”
His eyes flicked down and back up again one more time before he spoke.
“What I want,” he said, his voice low and smooth and purposeful, “is to fuck your ass.”
It took everything in me not to laugh in his face.
Like, everything. Fighting not to gag on his cock when it felt like the tip of it was past my vocal cords and my nose was buried in the curls of hair on his pelvis was easier than fighting that laugh. I fought back that laugh like it had a reverse bob haircut and was trying to grab the last eighty-percent-off TV at six am on Black Friday. I did whatever the mental equivalent of body slamming is to that laugh.
Because if I’d laughed in his face, JP would’ve thought he was right instead of realizing that I’d wanted to do that very thing for ages.
So I didn’t laugh. I didn’t shoot him down. I bit my lip, looking at a spot somewhere over his left shoulder as I pretended to mull it over, then inhaled deeply.
“Okay,” I said.
JP blinked, the arrogant smirk disappearing. “Okay?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. What else am I gonna do? I need a date for this, so yeah. You can.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “That—”
“After the gala,” I said. “I’m guessing my dad and Kimberlee will stay at the hotel since my dad usually does for that event. So you… you can come over.”
He stared at me, not quite gaping, not quite disbelieving, not quite certain of what had just happened. And fuck if I didn’t love being responsible for unsettling him like that.
“You’re sure, babe?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”
A scoff-like laugh was his response. “Of course. I’m the one who asked for it.”
“So we have a deal?”
His throat flexed as he swallowed and there was no mistaking the little smile that played on his lips. “What colour tie should I wear?”