Chapter 25
OLIVIA
“Oh shit. You’re going to murder me, aren’t you?”
I’m half joking, but the other half of me is convinced that the international man of mystery formerly known as Johnny B.
Nerdballs is capable of anything: swoony one-liners, life-changing orgasms, impromptu public serenades while slow dancing, advanced Manhattan-gala tux-wearing skills, effortless model-ex-girlfriend crazy-making abilities, choreographer douchebag-withering sidewalk bravado—and sure, possibly, why not—murder of his best friend’s sister.
I knew this was too good to be true.
I worked out at the gym closest to my parents’ house for two hours this morning while John had some Zoom meetings in my old bedroom.
When I got back, he took me to lunch in this rented sedan.
Now he’s driven to an empty parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse instead of returning us to my parents’ place.
He’s being weird.
This is weird.
“I’m not going to kill anyone,” he says—which is exactly what an insanely handsome billionaire serial killer would say, “but you might.” He parks the car.
“What are you doing?”
He turns off the radio. “I’m going to give you a driving lesson.”
I bark out a laugh. “Now?! Why?”
“Because it’s ridiculous that you don’t know how to drive, Olivia. It’s a basic skill in this country, and you should have a driver’s license.”
“You can’t let someone without a license drive a rented car! I’m barely old enough to rent one!”
“That’s right. I’m breaking all the rules for you. Don’t hit anything.” He removes his seat belt and gets out of the car.
I am paralyzed. Not with fear—with annoyance.
Johnny opens the passenger door, but I am still staring ahead, still paralyzed. “It would be better if you get into the driver’s seat.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to drive.”
He rests his forearm against the top of the open door. Annoyingly. “Why not?”
What an obnoxious question. “Because.”
“Really?”
“I don’t have to know how to drive.”
“You don’t want to know how to drive?”
“Nope.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So you’re scared,” he says. “You didn’t have time to take driver’s ed when you were in school because you spent all your free time at ballet class.
Of course, it didn’t bother you—making your parents and brother drive you everywhere.
After that, you were too busy being a professional dancer to learn.
You probably just had guys driving you everywhere.
Douche-y guys who didn’t know what kind of flowers you like or how to give you an orgasm.
And now you’re twenty-three years old, and you’re scared. ”
“I am not scared,” I say. “I live in San Francisco. I walk and I Muni and I BART and I Uber.”
“What if you one day live in an area that requires a car, like Palo Alto?”
“Are you asking me to fake move in with you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I’m not going to drive.”
We both have our arms crossed in front of our chests now, but he’s grinning and I’m pouting.
“What are you going to do if there’s a zombie apocalypse? Dance your way to safety?”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. That’s a pretty sweet image.
“What if there’s a big earthquake? A tsunami warning? A hurricane headed for San Francisco? Mandatory Godzilla or alien-attack-related evacuations?”
“I’ll call you and ask you to send Richard to pick me up, because even if I could drive, I don’t have a car, and neither does Callie,” I tell him.
“I will buy you a car.”
“A fake car?”
“A Batmobile,” he says. “Or a Prius. Probably a Prius.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t buy me a car.”
“Obviously I can. I can buy you a car manufacturer. But I can’t buy you the ability to safely and legally drive. Have you ever tried driving a car?”
This is the most annoyed I’ve ever been with him. “Are you kidding me right now? Why do you care?”
“I’ve already told you why I care. I don’t have time to argue about this. You need to get a license. It’s irresponsible not to. One day you’ll have a family, and you need to be able to drive them around—and no, you can’t put it off until you’ve danced the lead in Giselle.”
Oh, shit. He wants a family soon. He’s not going to wait for me.
“If I’d been around when you were sixteen, I would have given you driving lessons by force. Get into the driver’s seat, Olivia. Now.”
There’s something about the tone of his voice and the idea of being in a car alone with Johnny when I was sixteen that makes me release my seat belt, get out of the car, and silently curse my nipples for suddenly standing at attention.
Like, if I do crash this car, an airbag will not be necessary, because my very alert nipples will prevent the rest of me from hitting anything.
When I get into the driver’s seat, John is already calmly belted up next to me. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and twists his torso in my direction. “Buckle up.”
“I will! Duh.”
“Now adjust the mirrors.”
“Yes. I know what to do,” I say. “I’ve seen other people do it a million times, while selfishly and irresponsibly allowing them to drive me places.”
I adjust the seat and all the mirrors. I place my right foot on the brake pedal.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“What?”
I tear my eyes away from the asphalt ahead to find him staring at the outline of my boobs in my very tight T-shirt. He licks his lips, shakes his head, and turns to face straight ahead. “Just drive. Slowly.”
“You really trust me to do this?”
“There’s half a square mile of flat, open space and no one else around. Yes, I trust you.” He adjusts his jeans. Serves him right.
Take that, John’s penis!
I take a deep breath. It’s really dumb that I’m even the least bit nervous, because there’s maybe a five percent chance that I’d accidentally ram my foot against the gas pedal, that the gas pedal would get stuck, and that we’d crash into the side of the old brick warehouse.
A warehouse that is so far away I wouldn’t even want to get out and walk there.
“Hands at nine and three o’clock,” he barks.
“What?”
He looks at me like he can’t believe I didn’t understand the words that just came out of his mouth. It’s the same look he gave me when he was explaining calculus to me when I was thirteen.
“Pretend the steering wheel is a clock.” He places his hands on mine and slides them up the steering wheel. “Keep your hands at nine o’clock and three o’clock when you’re driving a car with an airbag.”
“Nobody drives like that!”
“I do.”
“Yeah, but you’re a nerd.”
He mumbles something under his breath, something about “pointy headlights.”
I put the car in Drive and then slowly, ever so carefully, move my right foot onto the gas pedal as my left foot hovers above the brake pedal. I then proceed to drive slower than I ever thought it was possible to drive. My grandparents would make fun of me for driving this slowly.
“Emergency brakes,” he snaps.
“What?!” I jam my foot back onto the brake pedal—because I can’t talk and drive at the same time. Nobody should do that. Ever.
He calmly points to the parking brake. “You haven’t released the parking brake. That’s why the car is moving so slowly.”
“Fine. I will now release the parking brake.” I release the parking brake. I put my hands back at nine and three. I lift my foot from the brake pedal. I press my foot against the gas pedal. And I drive…
I am driving the shit out of this rental car!
I don’t drive all herky-jerky or super slow.
I drive straight. When he tells me to signal and then make a right turn, I do it.
When he barks at me to check the mirrors before turning—even when there’s no one around—I calmly check the mirrors.
Because I’m a safe driver, and there might be someone around.
When he tells me to make a left turn, I signal first, check the mirrors, and then I make that left turn like a pro.
When he tells me to change lanes, I don’t tell him that there aren’t any lanes—I signal, check my mirrors, and then I pretend to change lanes.
I fucking love driving.
I am so good at this!
I can’t believe I’ve never done this before. He’s right—I was scared. It’s so dumb to be scared of something that pretty much every adult on this continent does on a regular basis.
“Change lanes and then make a left turn,” he orders.
And boy, if he thought my nipples were hard before he started bossing me around… I signal, check my mirrors, look over my shoulder, and pretend to change lanes, and then I slow down and make a left turn. Driving is fun.
“Okay, slow down and come to a complete stop. Put it in Park. That’s enough.”
“But I’m having fun!”
“We need to get back and change for the fundraiser.”
I groan, but I do what he says. I slow the car down and stop and park. I even put on the emergency brake.
“Good job, kid,” he says. “I knew you could do it. We need to get back to your parents’ house now.”
As soon as he has released his seat belt and before he’s unlocked his door, I am climbing over the center divider and straddling him. Lowering myself onto his lap.
“What are you—”
I kiss him as hard and deep as I can while squealing into his mouth. I feel like a teenager. My jeans are so tight, they’re cutting into my hips, but I don’t care.
Johnny tries to speak, but he can’t. He can’t because I’m grinding away on him and I’ve placed his hands over my pointy headlights.
I am so turned on by this man. The element of surprise.
The confidence. The trust. The way his hands squeeze my tits even when he’s protesting that we have to get going.
The deep sound from his throat, the dark stubble that tickles my skin.
His hard cock inside his very expensive jeans, the way his tongue sweeps around inside my mouth even before he realizes what I’m doing to him.
Even the thought of driving my kids around in an electric minivan during a zombie apocalypse.
“I want you,” I exhale. “I want you, I want you, I want you.”
I pull off his glasses and place them on the dashboard.
“I’m yours,” he says, like this is as obvious as basic algebra and he can’t believe he has to say it out loud.
“I want you to fuck me,” I say, reaching down between my legs to stroke the hard length in his jeans.
“It’s broad daylight.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
He groans when I unbutton his jeans. “I don’t have condoms on me.”
“I don’t care—I’m on the pill.” I unbutton and unzip my own jeans.
“Two forms of birth control.” His voice is deep and breathy, but he’s squeezing my ass as I bear down on him, dry humping him like some idiot who’s trying to resuscitate him because I think his heart is in his crotch.
I lift my hands up to the ceiling and let my head fall as I arch back, and he pushes up my tight little T-shirt—my lucky Led Zeppelin T-shirt that’s the color of his hair—so he can kiss my breasts. He rocks his hips to match my rhythm.
Does driving make everyone this horny? I am definitely going to get my driver’s license now. I feel like I can do anything. Maybe I should get my pilot’s license when I retire from dancing!
“God, what are you doing to me?” he asks my boobs.
I’ll let them answer. They can speak for me. I am wild and blind with desire, and all I want is for John Brandt to lose his mind from wanting me as much as I want him. “Fuck me, John Brandt! I want your big, hard dick inside me.”
“Olivia.”
That stern, reprimanding voice just makes me even hornier, and he knows it.
I’ve heard of mothers who’ve lifted up cars to save their children because of all the cortisol and adrenaline coursing through their veins.
I’m so flooded with happy hormones right now, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to lift up this car and shake it until he agreed to pull his dick out.
I just need him to pull it out, and I will take it from there.
I desperately need to feel something between my legs besides my own throbbing ache.
“Now, Johnny.”
“This introduces significant risk,” he mutters as he reaches down to unzip his jeans. “I can’t control myself around you anymore.” He sounds defeated but accepting.
This. Being the one thing that makes this man lose control is a drug, and I’ve become a junkie. A really horny junkie.
I lift myself off his lap so he can reach inside his pants, but I finally realize that I need to get my pants off too.
I try to push them down my hips, but even with the flexibility of nearly two decades’ worth of ballet training, there is no possible way for me to extract myself from this denim prison without getting out of the front seat.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I open the passenger door and climb out, somehow thinking I can peel my jeans off while lifting my leg over John. But I lose my battle with gravity.
I do land on the asphalt gracefully, though, and without any pain, for aforementioned happy-hormone reasons. I’m laughing so hard I don’t have the strength to lift my hips up and push my pants down.
“Are you okay?!” John is laughing. God, I love to hear him laugh.
I can’t stop snort-laughing. “No! Can you pull my pants off for me?!”
“I don’t think I can physically get out of the car with this big of a hard-on.”
My eyes have filled with tears, not just from laughing—because my lady parts are in despair.
I hear something and manage to raise my head up to see, through blurry eyes, a man in a navy blue uniform approaching.