Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The door to his condo clicked shut. Jory was finally alone.
What a fucking week.
He sat down on his painfully white couch to rub his eyes in exhaustion, but abandoned the move when he felt something clumpy dig into his ribs. He leaned over to gain access to his utility vest pocket and fished out a slightly bruised banana. What the hell? He would never put any kind of fruit, let alone a banana in his pocket. Pockets were strange dark places that contained unhygienic things like coins and phones. They were not meant for food.
Cali.
The woman was relentless in her campaign to ply him with calories. Sneaking food into his pocket was a further infiltration of his autonomous personhood. He should be furious. He should be insulted.
Instead, he felt warm.
It was becoming obvious the woman put the needs of everyone above her own. He didn’t think he was particularly special in that regard. What did make him feel special was how she’d reacted when he’d helped her . She’d held that hot chocolate like it had been a prized alien artifact brought through multiple and dangerous dimensions. It was just hot chocolate. But he’d felt as though he had given her the world.
He wanted to see that look on her face again. To make her understand she didn’t have to carry the weight of everyone around her, that she could depend on someone else to carry the load. Thinking back on his own life, he’d been awash in support from the get-go. From his father when his mother died, from his aunts and uncles, who filled in the gaps made from her absence, from his grandmother endorsing his career, even though she’d proclaimed it was “common.” They would undoubtedly be there for him through his health scare if he wanted that kind of attention, which he did not. They’d all been through enough.
But Cali was someone he could help, someone he could support. He could keep her out of his drama while taking some of hers away. He hadn’t understood his need to be the one who bolstered, encouraged, and protected until strong, vibrant, and capable Cali Daniels held his hot chocolate like a precious gift.
He contemplated the banana in his hands. Even her choice of banana was considerate. Just this side of ripe—if a bit worse for wear from his pocket—it was exactly how he liked them. A shade greener and it would be too chalky. A shade yellower and it would be too mealy. He slowly peeled the banana as he mulled over the day with her. He’d had chemistry with other women, but this was some next-level shit. It must be the taboo of connecting on set, the possibility of being discovered, coupled with the freedom from any attachments. She didn’t want anything serious and neither did he which made for a sexy time, limited to the dangerous but no less exciting game they played. It couldn’t go any further, though, which was freeing. A relief even.
A doorbell startled Jory from his thoughts. He had a doorbell? He supposed he must since he had a door, but why would anyone ring it? As if in answer to this very deep existential quandary, it rang again. Banana in hand, he rose from the couch, cautiously opened the door, and froze.
A forlorn and drained Cali stood there, all big eyes and pale skin, dressed in tight jeans and a teal T-shirt announcing, “Kevin’s Birthday Cruise!”
Cali gestured to the banana. “That looks funnier than I thought it would.”
He crooked an eyebrow. “You pictured me holding my banana?”
Cali started to smile but squashed it, gravely shaking her head in disappointment instead. “That was a terrible drunk uncle joke.”
“Well, I have lots of drunk uncles, so it was only a matter of time.”
She let a shy smile eke through this time, and he tentatively answered with one of his own. As the moment lengthened, so did the silence. Jory couldn’t think what he was supposed to do next.
Luckily, Cali did. “Can I come in?”
“Oh yeah, of course. Yeah.” Jory sheepishly moved aside.
She stepped into his immaculate condo and came to a stop at the kitchen island, hesitant. It was odd for her, and that uncomfortable urge rose up in him again, where he wanted to pull her into a hug to soothe away her fears, to feel her sigh and relax against his body.
He took up a position kitty-corner, putting the island between them. He sensed her unguarded fragility, her disquiet, and kept his distance so he wouldn’t spook her. “How’s your sister?”
“Asleep.” Cali pulled a baby monitor out of her pocket and turned it on. Over the speaker a delicate snore drifted out, the light monitor rising and falling with each rumble. “She’ll probably crash pretty hard for the next eight hours, but there’s always a chance she’ll wake up and go wander the streets for a party she can crash.”
“You’ve done this before.” He kept his features neutral but inwardly winced at the intensity of responsibility Cali had for her sister. That was something he never wanted to put on anyone. It was beyond unfair—selfish even.
“Couldn’t handle waiting for her to wake up, so I bought this.” She shook the monitor with a half-hearted wiggle.
Jory wanted so badly to raise his hand to her cheek, to give her some kind of respite. To hold her face and touch her hair as she nuzzled into his hand. His heart beat heavy at the fantasy, but he kept his hand at his side.
As though sensing his reticence, she lifted her eyes to his. They were filled with such sad resignation it made him livid.
“Do you know what decision fatigue is?” Cali said.
Jory was taken aback by the segue. He searched his mind for where he’d heard the term. “Something about Obama’s suits?”
She smiled. “Sort of. Obama recognized that making too many decisions would drain his resources, leaving his executive function less capable to make appropriate choices. So he made sure his suits were either navy blue or dark gray, making for one less decision in the day and therefore strengthening his self-regulation.” Jory nodded but didn’t quite understand what she was getting at. It must have shown, because she continued. “I’m having trouble with self-regulation because I’ve made too many decisions.”
“So … you have limited executive function?”
Cali solemnly nodded.
He thought he was following her breadcrumbs, but he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. “And now you don’t want to make any more decisions?”
Cali shook her head.
He took a leap. “You want me to make the decisions for you?”
A nod.
“Wouldn’t that put me in a position of taking advantage of your lack of executive function?” He could feel the familiar tightening of his cock, a common occurrence around this woman.
“Not if my last decision was to give you the power to make the decisions.”
His heart clenched. Her melancholy eyes revealed the weight she carried, not only from the emotional turmoil over her sister and, from what he’d gathered, her mother, but the constant stress of giving guidance to a crew and cast on a troubled shoot. A shoot where, instead of being her ally, the DP had firmly set himself against her, tacitly allying himself with an executive producer who had never given her a chance. She looked at the end of her tether, and knowing he had been party to that made him nauseous.
He wanted to ease her troubles, to take away the pressure coursing through her. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that this was where they had been heading, even on that first day, if he was being honest. He was hungry for it, for her. But he couldn’t responsibly take that plunge until he knew they were on the same page, that there was a clear understanding. He knew what it meant to lose and wouldn’t put someone else through the possibility of that.
“What about the one-and-done rule?” he asked.
“We haven’t done this one.”
“And when we’re done, so will we be. This”—he motioned between them—“will be done. We will be done.”
She nodded.
Could he actually have this? A deluge of desire overtook him, one he’d been holding back for weeks, denying the passion was even there, let alone raging beneath his tenuous control. People did this all the time, didn’t they? Had illicit sex with people from work that they developed no deeper feelings for? An easy, hot arrangement between two adults who wanted to blow off steam?
He could do this. He was going to do this. And all the warning whispers and incredulous skepticism could fuck off.
Still, he had to be crystal clear. “You fully agree to this? You haven’t been coerced in any way?”
Cali glanced down at an envelope sitting on the island, grabbed a pen and wrote I, Cali Daniels, on the night of July 17, being of sound mind and body, consent to Jory Blair making all further decisions for me. I have not been coerced by him in any way unless I ask to be.
Jory peered up from her messy cursive to search her exhausted face. “That letter is from my eighty-year-old great aunt.”
“Oh. Sorry. Would she appreciate the sentiment?”
“Probably. She was very progressive in her day.”
A tremulous smile pushed at her lips. She was nervous, he realized, her gaze lowered to his chest. Then she took a breath and bravely bared her neck to him just that little bit, just that submissive, little bit, reminding him he’d had no relief from the games that had crackled between them all day, or the past three weeks, really. He’d never seen her so still, and it filled him with awe that she was still for him. His blood flowed faster at the sight of her patiently waiting, while she fought to keep her breath even.
“Please, Jory. I want to forget who I am for a while.”
His mind shut down and his body took over. He plunged his hands into her long auburn hair, turning the waves in the light to see the sparks of russet and copper. He tightened his grip, hard enough to pull at the roots and give her scalp that tingling sensation while forcing her head back to meet his eyes. Hers burned green, the dilated pupils usurping the brown as her breath quickened and her body relaxed into his hold.
Reveling in the power, he slowly brushed his lips across hers with the lightest kiss, despite wanting to crush himself against her. Her breath sighed out at the touch, her eyelashes brushing against his cheek as they lowered. He took leisurely sips of her mouth, the smallest nibbles to tease her, relishing her taste as she began to pull against his hold—trying to gain leverage.
He had to smile. Only a moment after explicitly handing over control, she was trying to claw it back, to direct the kiss and push into him. He backed off and held her firm as she squirmed in his grasp. “I’m making the decisions, right?”
Cali moaned in frustration but stilled into passivity again, waiting for his next move.
He hummed his approval. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
He held her for a moment, teetering on the edge of what was about to happen. Her tenacious confidence was an incredible turn-on. He’d marveled over her ability to go toe to toe with him despite his hard-ass reputation, pushing him to be better. He was humbled by how openly she wanted him in this moment, needed him to take away the stresses of her outside world, even if it was just for tonight.
When he searched her face, so trusting and desperate for care, for oblivion, he didn’t have much of a choice. He wanted this woman. And he swept in.
There was no teasing in this kiss. The pent-up energy he’d kept under wraps for days exploded and poured into her. All the hope he had for the future and all the fear he had in the present. And she took it all, with a strength that made him wonder who was caring for whom. She let him plunder her mouth, let him taste every crevice, plunging his tongue so deep she whimpered. He claimed every soft, hot space, showing her she was his now.
A thought surfaced—she tasted like a candy cane.
He pulled away from her lush mouth to rain kisses down her neck, breathing in the pomelo scent he recognized from the shampoo in his own condo welcome gift basket. “What did you just eat?”
“Sorry?” she breathed.
Jory lifted his head and saw eyes fogged with desire. She was all in, completely in his hands, and the power made him grunt like a caveman. “What did you just eat?”
“Oh. A mint protein bar and a diet cola.”
“You taste like Christmas.”
“Do you like Christmas?”
“I do on you.”
He went back to her lips and swept his tongue inside her yuletide mouth while he bent her backward over his arm, giving her no choice but to take his onslaught. Her fingers squeezed his forearms as she battled to meet him stroke for stroke. He got the notion he could come from the ferocity of this kiss alone. Forcing himself to slow down, he matched the tempo of the strokes of his tongue to the grind of his hips against the beautiful valley between her legs. His attentions gained him a moan as she angled closer, searching for relief.
He released her mouth and stepped back, leaving her on wobbly legs. She stumbled from his sudden retreat, and he brought his hands to her hips to steady her. To steady them both.
“You with me, Cali?”
She blinked in an attempt to focus, and Jory was struck by how far she let herself go. God, she’s intense. He’d never experienced someone give themselves over to the moment so completely. His relationships had always maintained that surface distance, whether they lasted months or a year. But somehow he knew more about this woman in a few weeks than everything he’d learned from his past relationships put together. Jory wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of her intensity all the time. In, and out, of the bedroom.
Jory shut the notion down and brought his hand up to cup her chin, digging his fingers in slightly so she remembered who was in charge. “You want to see what you do to me? What you’ve left me with this whole week? How I’d rather walk around with blue balls than come outside of your teasing pussy?”
Cali looked stunned with desire as her pupils blew her eyes black, but she managed a slight nod.
Jory raised an eyebrow in response. “Well, get to it, woman.”
He was rewarded by a look of gleeful hunger on her face. Jory had to bite back a groan, so he could appear impassive and bored. He had a role to play, after all.
Cali obediently sank to her knees, heat climbing into her cheeks. Once settled, she waited for his next direction. There was a calm in her, an absence of the low-grade anxiety he hadn’t known existed until she’d been given permission to put it away. The realization flooded him with a sudden sense of responsibility: he’d been given something precious with this exchange, and he had to be respectful. The feeling was foreign and slightly terrifying, and he realized how reined in he’d been with his other relationships. He felt himself letting go, giving himself over to what was building between them. He smoothed the hair from her forehead and tipped her chin.
“Take it out.”
She unbuckled his belt with trembling fingers, pulling his zipper down with a slow reverence. Her face was rapturous, like she was unveiling some kind of magical talisman instead of peeling down his boxer briefs to set his dick free. She let out a gasp at the sight of his heavy cock, which did more for his ego than he liked to admit.
“You see what you do to me?” He gripped his shaft and gave it a pull. “And there’s no relief from it.”
Cali sulked. “I could have done something for you before.”
“Do something for me now.”
Cali exhaled, “Thank God.” She opened up her mouth and took him deep. No teasing, no preamble, just all of him straight down.
“Holy fuck.” Jory’s knees buckled. Her suck was so strong her cheeks hollowed out, and that, combined with the flat of her tongue laving the base of his shaft as she pulled back, forced him to grip the edge of the kitchen island counter.
She pulled off with a pop and brought her hand up to replace her mouth, lazily sliding it back and forth while she peered up at him. “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks.” She put her mouth on him again and charged on in relentless rhythm, gliding her hands along his cock with the wet she’d left behind.
She was exhaustive, finding every pressure point, every seam, every spot of pleasure as if this blow job was her dying wish. He threw his head back and groaned loud enough to be embarrassed if it didn’t feel so fucking good. Hauling himself back from the edge of the abyss, he put what was left of his willpower into a stern command. “Enough.”
Except she didn’t listen. She doubled her efforts instead. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped his hand around her hair and pulled her firmly off him, her mouth releasing him with a gasp.
“What? Why?” She was all whiny pout.
He schooled his features. “Who’s in charge here?”
“You are.” Begrudging, thy name is Calliope.
He helped her from the floor, hoisting his khakis back up to rest on his hips—there was no putting his cock back in—and escorted her, with all the gravitas of a cotillion dance, to his snow-white couch.
He placed her at one armless end, where he unbuckled her belt and then went down on one knee to drift her jeans down her thighs. He brought one of her hands to his shoulder as he helped her out of each leg and then studied her as she stood in front of him in her red, boy-cut underwear. He ran his hands up and down her legs lightly, pleased when goose bumps rose on her skin. She sighed above him, letting her shoulders drop, just as he brought his hands to the back of her knees and jerked them forward, tumbling her back onto the couch. She let out a yelp of surprise.
He roughly pulled her butt to the edge, bringing her core in line with his face, and breathed in her scent—earth and fruit and tang all at once. “You smell fucking amazing.”
He pulled her panties aside and dipped a finger into her, dragging through her soaking folds.
She sucked in her breath. “Oh geez.”
He took his finger out and stuck it in his mouth, sucking it like a lollipop, groaning. “You’re all essence of whatever the fuck ambrosia is.”
“I only know ambrosia salad.” Cali shuddered above him.
“You a fan of ambrosia salad?”
“It’s hard to miss where I come from. It’s the salad of the white-trash gods.”
He breathed out a surprised chuckle. God she was funny. He spent most of his time on set trying not to laugh at her one-liners. Who knew why. Probably something about his misguided sense of control.
But jokes weren’t part of this game. If she was cracking wise, she wasn’t mindless with the desire Jory wanted to wring from her. He pulled down her panties in a rough move, and ran his fingers along her seam, dipping inside to circle her entrance then pushing deeper with a possessive thrust. She raised her head in a gasp, then dropped back down. He eased in and out, curling in the upthrust to catch that bundle of nerves from the inside.
She was so swollen, so tight. He’d go slow, which conveniently fit into his torturous plan. “Got to get you ready for me.”
“I am so ready.”
“No, you’re not.”
She looked up with a smirk. “You all that?”
Jory’s inner Neanderthal rose to the surface, and he growled, “If you’re lucky, you’ll get it.”
Cali couldn’t think. She couldn’t make a plan or formulate a decision. There was no responsibility to take, no doubt to stifle, no anxiety to extinguish. All she could do was feel . Jory had woven some crazy sorcery with his fingers inside her while his other hand claimed her breasts under “Kevin’s Birthday Cruise.”
She’d never been so vulnerable, so open, so out of control. So grateful .
Now she was messing up his expensive white couch, her knees splayed wide open for the enemy who was once the author of her troubles and now the catalyst for her amnesia, his expert fingers breaking apart her consciousness as he rubbed her G-spot.
And then he lowered his head.
He dragged the flat of his tongue over the length of her core, pressing hard, as though surveying it all before zeroing in on specifics. He lavished attention on her clit and then backed off, easing her away from the growing tension to focus on the inside of her sensitive lips. Then he did it again. And again. The more he circled, the more friction she wanted, and just when she was peaking, he backed off, leaving her to whine in frustration.
Cali never came from oral. The chatter in her brain wouldn’t allow it, and so she was always self-conscious. The assumption that she should feel privileged a guy was going down on her, paired with the necessary passivity during the act, didn’t jive well with her busy mind.
But Jory seemed to be in zero hurry. He tested and prodded and listened to her reactions, diving in and easing back, breathing as heavily as she did, as though her cunt were connected to his cock and what he was doing to her was mainly for him.
Then he started to talk, as if sensing her drift. “You’re thinking.”
Startled out of her fog, Cali came back to her body. “No, this is good. It’s good.” And it was good, but she was thinking and she cursed Jory for knowing as much.
“Think about how hard I’m going to fuck you once I decide you’re wet enough for me.” His filthy mouth banished her thoughts, and she felt herself get wetter, as though on his command. She moaned, wriggling in anticipation.
Jory smacked her flank. “Don’t move. Or I’ll only give you the tip.” Cali shivered at the thought of him pushing into her, her body prepping for the cock she could still taste in her mouth—thick, long, hard—and she immediately stilled.
He swirled his fingers. “I’ll fuck you so deep and slow.”
“God, you’re really good at dirty talk.”
“That’s not for you. I don’t care how you feel.”
Even though she doubted that was true, the pretense of it made her relax into his touch even more. She was so relieved she didn’t need to perform , to prove she was enjoying every second. Making it about Jory gave her permission to relax enough to actually enjoy his mouth, his control over her. To give herself up to him. The thought made her clit swell and her body tense, and she felt her body hurtling toward a cliff she almost never approached.
“Maybe I won’t let you come now. Maybe I’ll wait until you’re face down in my pillows, begging for me to ram inside of you. When I fill every part of your swollen pussy and you milk me with it.”
Her desire ratcheted up tighter as he lowered his mouth again. She was so far gone, she could only feel his hands working inside her and his tongue fluttering in a flurry of strokes—quick, quick, long, long, quick, quick, long, long—as her body climbed higher, winding like a top ready to spin off its string.
Despite herself, she shattered, keening as her release crackled through her body. He kept up his movements, fucking her with his hands while lapping up her wet as she pulsed and pulsed around him, all her tension rushing out in a whoosh that left her boneless.
Jory moaned in approval, his hands moving languorously, his tone stern. “You’re in big trouble for not waiting for my cock. You’ve made me very unhappy.”
“Sorry” was all she could eke out.
“Up.”
What? How could she possibly get up? He’d killed her with his bossiness. She was dead from his mastery. How could he be so cruel to actually expect her to move?
She was about to tell him as much, but his eyes were black with hunger and hard with disapproval. There was also a spark of mischief there, like he was loving the game while worshipping her in the process. She felt an unexpected craving for him that had nothing to do with desire.
“Get up.” He stood and pulled her up by her hands, using her momentum to hoist her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
Cali squealed, her blast of emotion forgotten. “What are you doing?”
All she got in response was a slap on her ass.
“Wait! I need the baby monitor.” Cali hated to break for reality, but she couldn’t let go of the ever-present responsibility.
“I never thought I’d hear that sentence tonight.” But he changed directions so he could grab the monitor and continued on down the hall.
Suddenly she was bouncing on a bed in deep discombobulation, her world upside down. She pushed herself up on her elbows to watch him shove down his pants, revealing strong, thick thighs cording around to the lift of his ass that she could only see a hint of. Her focus was pulled back by the plain blue T-shirt rising up his body, his Pilates-toned body, followed by the roll of a condom over his incredible cock as he climbed her in predatorial grace.
His hands clasped the outside of her thighs to draw her legs up until her knees were beside her chest, leaving her open and exposed. “You have to make up for coming too soon.”
His face was hard, his voice thick with want, and he took his cock in hand to slide through her sensitive core, rekindling the fire her orgasm had banked. Icy, controlled Jory was gone. In his place was a man she had only caught glimpses of, mostly when he was sparring with her. It made her wonder how much this man kept himself in check, how little he let himself out to run amok in the dangerous messiness of feelings.
With shaking hands, he notched himself at her opening and lowered his lids as he squeezed in. She’d been boneless a moment before. Now she clenched hard around him, angling her hips in a greedy grasp to pull him in deeper.
“This is all for you.” She loved him inside her, craved it, but knew that it would be just that. She didn’t want him to hold off to wait for her. “I won’t come again.”
“This is all for me. You’re not allowed to come again.” His tone was uncaring and selfish. Somehow it stoked her higher as he slid farther in, and she moaned out his name in surprise.
Jory ground his teeth as he seated himself fully, stopping for moment to take a long breath. Then he set a measured pace, his thrusts deepening along with his voice, “I’m going to make you very, very sorry you didn’t listen to me.”
A shuddering noise came out of him, and suddenly Cali wanted to shatter his steely reserve. There was something she was chasing, a need to see him unravel, to see his vulnerability only for her. Cali clawed through her fuck-drunk haze to taunt, “Fuck me harder. Don’t hold back.”
His eyes snapped to hers, full of challenge. “That’s not for you to decide. I do what I want.”
His fingers dug into her thighs as his hips quickened, determination on his face as he watched her response. She hadn’t been lying; she never came twice. Hell, she was happy she had come once, but right now her body was calling her out. He changed his angle, and she felt the ridge of his length graze against that bundle of nerves. She whimpered at the intensity, and her body coiled again. He smirked through his grunts, sweat sheening his brow as she grasped him with every invasion. But when his triumphant gaze clashed with hers, his smirk stuttered. She got the overwhelming sense he could see everything in her—her failures, her faults, her regrets.
And it didn’t matter.
“I see you. Don’t.” With the harsh order he brought his hand to her clit and rubbed. Soft at first, in direct opposition to what his cock was doing, then building in intensity. Her eyeballs literally rolled back at the sensation until she could barely remember to breathe.
His thrusts got wild, the slaps of his thighs ringing out in the room. He growled at her. “I told you, don’t come. Even though you owe it to me, should give it all to me, because it’s mine. Don’t you dare come.”
And then she exploded, screaming his name in a deafening rush and barely registering his quickening thrusts. His own roar filled her up, his head shooting back as he kept going, shuddering through his own eruption.
He collapsed on her, their chests heaving in tandem. She drank in the weight of him, as though his body kept Cali from flying out and losing herself, losing this, whatever this was. A sense of fulfillment stole over her, of rightness that came with his weight.
He rolled off, the absence of his body allowing her busy thoughts to intrude. They lay side by side, slowing their breaths.
The moment extended into an interminable silence, and the reality of what had happened soaked into her. This was their one, and now they were done. A sadness intruded that she couldn’t name. He was obviously a sex god as well as a talented DP, and she should be grateful she’d gotten this time with him. She’d needed this release, and he had been happy enough to oblige, and now they could return to what they were before. This was a good thing. She could cling to this moment from the safety of her memory.
She began to piece together the words so she could leave, definitively cutting off this unwanted glow and making sure he understood where they stood. The words were slow to come, though. He turned toward her, and she braced herself for the inevitable invitation to stay or the inanities of how amazing it had been—even though it really had—and she sorted through her mental Rolodex for her usual “out” lines. But nothing presented itself, and instead she slowly rolled her head to meet his eyes, wondering what she might find.
He was smiling. A boyish, self-satisfied smile that was open and relaxed. Her chest nearly burst. She ached to grab him, wrap her arms and legs around his body and never let go. She blinked the alien urge away, uneasy about exploring what it could mean, because, ultimately, it couldn’t mean anything.
He pulled his hand up to rub his chest, like he was massaging his overextended heart. “I thought I told you not to come.”
She shrugged. “I guess I can’t take direction.”
He rumbled out a chuckle, and she had to smile. She tried to reel it in, to be cool, but instead a giggle escaped through tight lips. Slow at first, released in little hiccups that made him break into a silly grin. Then all the tension and the fear of the last few weeks dissolved as the dam she’d erected to keep her distance shattered with a bark of laughter she couldn’t hold back. He answered in kind, and they laughed together. They laughed until tears streamed down their faces.