Chapter 8
Julia
In my entire life as a grown woman, I didn’t know I could be this fucking horny while being this stressed out.
We need work. I don’t even have a card. The box is in the truck. The money is running out. No card. Tonya wants to leave. Client here. Who pays for lunch? No card. He’ll walk. Don’t let him. No card. Unprofessional.
Caspian’s touch was just a tease that kept me loose. Then his pinkie, like a rogue actor, stretched out and touched the damp surface of my underwear—right over the clit—and I almost came over coffee. I was jolted out of my spiral.
Being sued by the son of a corrupt politician isn’t even an urgent matter right now.
The business Nigel wants to conduct is probably all talk and bullshit.
I don’t have a brain in my head. It’s moved below my waist. I need Caspian’s dick inside me.
That’s the only thing that needs to be done right away.
Tonya wants out of there. She doesn’t like Gerry. I don’t either. She never wanted to step foot onto Newport Beach for reasons she wouldn’t disclose. I’ll get her out of here in ten minutes. There’s a four-alarm fire between my legs.
I claim to need the bathroom. Either Caspian’s going to take a hint and fuck me in it or I’m going to sit on the toilet and get myself off. Either way, this hurling meteorite of pressure is getting relieved.
He follows me. His face isn’t giving casual either. He’s a man on a mission. Great. We’re in this together. Both bathrooms are occupied. Of course.
“I’m going to fuck you from behind,” he whispers in my ear.
I swear to God, I almost come right there.
If he keeps up with this, I’m going to make a damn fool of myself in this restaurant.
So I tell him to make it quick, and I focus on those locked doors.
Those kinds of locks are only on single toilet bathrooms. Good.
I’d let him fuck me from behind in a stall, but that won’t be necessary.
The old guy leaving the bathroom was put there to frustrate me, but we wait for him to get out of the way and rush in together.
Once Caspian locks the door, he spins me around to face the vanity mirror. The bathroom is pretty clean. Thick towels. A candle. Fake flowers. Two kinds of pump soap and a lotion. It’s encouragement I don’t really need.
He reaches around and pulls my dress up, getting his hands on my breasts. His erection pushes against my ass. We look at each other in the mirror as he fondles me.
“This fucking body,” he breathes in my ear.
“You better get inside it…” I pull down my underwear. We don’t have all day. “…if you have protection. If you don’t, I’m going to suck you dry in three seconds flat.”
“I got it.” He takes a condom out of his pocket and sticks it in his teeth so he can unbuckle, unbutton, unzip, release.
I really would love to put that lovely thing in my mouth, but fucking is quicker and we’ll both get off. I bend over the sink and spread my feet apart, watching him roll the rubber on behind me, then ready, aim…
“Yes,” I hiss as he pushes inside. Two strokes and he’s buried.
“You feel so good.” He groans as he drives forward.
I grab the far end of the sink and he grabs a handful of hair, fucking hard and slow. My skirt’s back down around my waist, and the level in my pocket is knocking against the vanity.
He pulls it out. In the mirror, he holds it for a moment as he moves—like he’s not sure if he can do two things at once.
“Now?”
“Get used.” He takes a gasping breath before he finishes. “To him.”
He reaches under the counter with the level. As soon as it touches my clit, I’m not worried about the tool changing, because it’s not even close to horizontal, and we’re moving so much. It’s worse than the boat.
“Julia,” he says into my cheek.
I turn to kiss him, moving against his dick while humping the level. He tastes like Coke on ice. Like sugar and holidays. He bites my bottom lip, and that little bit of pain causes the pleasure to flood in to fight it. I say his name as if I’m holding an empty bowl, asking for more.
“I’m here, Julia. For you.” His voice has less control this time.
He pushes the hard plastic between my legs. It feels so good. Not level. At an angle. Still good. I’m used to it. I even like it. I lose track of his dick and focus on the explosion radiating out from my nub.
“I’m—” I can’t finish the warning and just come, bending my face to the floor. I forget my name. This is the kind of orgasm that blacks out reality like a Sharpie.
The level clatters to the tile.
He makes a grunt of surprise behind me.
I open my eyes.
Caspian didn’t drop the level.
There’s a screwdriver on the floor.
I look in the mirror.
Behind me, his blue eyes open wide in shock, is a naked, sandy-haired man I’ve never met in my life. He’s slimmer than Caspian, with scruff on his jawline. He squints like a kid trying to see the blackboard, then, with a heaving chest, he says my name in a voice so soft I can barely hear it.
I turn around to look at him directly, holding my reply behind my teeth. What are the odds, with Caspian being so hot, that his friend would be this cute?
“Tony?”
“Tonio, but Tony’s okay.” He leans closer and stops squinting. “Wow. You’re beautiful.”
“Whatever you say.” There’s nothing wrong with me, but everything must look beautiful to a guy with new eyes.
Caspian’s clothes are pooled between our feet. I bend down to pick up the screwdriver.
“Is that him?”
“Yeah.” I let my dress fall and straighten myself, clutching the screwdriver. I don’t know Tony, and I don’t want him handling Caspian. “I thought you had to be level.”
“The bubbles had to… kinda… be in the center.” He’s much more soft-spoken than Caspian was when he came out. Of course, I was screaming rape and trying to kill him with a chisel.
“So, how? We couldn’t have been even close.”
Tony’s looking at his hands as if he’s never seen them before. I notice there’s a light scar on the inside of his elbow, like Caspian has. Like he had.
There’s a light rap on the door, then a voice I don’t recognize. “Everything okay?”
Someone probably called the manager. This is what I was hoping to avoid, but if I was really worried about this happening, I wouldn’t have been fucking in the bathroom in the first place.
“Sorry! Not feeling great. Give me a minute!” I pick Caspian’s pants off the floor and shove them at the stranger who was just rubbing his dick on me. There’s a weight in the pocket. I reach for it. My old phone with the cracked glass. That joins the screwdriver in my pocket. “Put these on.”
“What about…” He looks at them, then his legs, squinting at his toes. “Underwear?”
“Forget that.” I snap up Caspian’s briefs and stuff them in the trash. “Look, Tony… Tonio.”
“Whatever’s easier, really. Giancarlo called me—”
“Not to be rude?” I put a finger on his lips which, I just happen to notice, are shaped really nice. “But shush.”
“Okay.” He puts down the toilet lid and sits on it.
God, he’s so cute. Pointy chin. Messy hair. Unbearably big brown eyes. A body fit enough to fuck, but not enough to hurt someone.
Julia. I’m here… for you.
But he isn’t, is he?
Everything is happening too fast. I can’t be whipped around like this. It has to stop.
Whatever shell Caspian tapped at this morning just gets softer. It’s as if it’s not even brittle enough to crack anymore. Now it’s thin and soft and the slightest touch will open it.
I turn around and rub away loose mascara. In the mirror, he slides into Caspian’s jeans by opening the waist and putting both legs in at the same time.
Who does that?
He stands and buttons them. They’re too big. This man. He’s not Caspian. He’s different. I have to start over. All soft and splitting and whipsawed around like a defective water balloon.
He’s looking at his hands as if he’s fascinated by them. Caspian did something similar.
Whatever I’m feeling, he’s feeling, but bigger and deeper.
“I can’t break and spill,” I say.
“Excuse me?” He makes eye contact in the mirror, eyebrows up in an expression of attentiveness.
I have to keep my shit together.
“There are people at a table who saw me go in here with Caspian, and I’m going to be leaving with you. So whatever I tell you to do, you’re just going to go along with me. Got it?”
“Yeah. Is this his?” He holds the cowboy shirt up by the shoulders, about eight inches from his face. “Jesus. What is he thinking?”
“Put it on.”
“Right.” Hurriedly, he unsnaps the front. “What are you going to tell Tonya? And that Nigel person?”
I wash my hands, rinse off the screwdriver, and wipe a splat of jizz off the sink. Tony knows about Tonya and why we’re here. Then he’s probably aware of Dan. Good. Fewer things I have to explain to him. But he’s easy. He was just a level. It’s the rest of the people at the table I’m worried about.
“I don’t know how this happened.” I dry my hands on the soft paper towel. “You weren’t even level.”
“I had three glass tubes.”
He did. I mean, it did. Caspian and I were only considering the easy ones. Horizontal and vertical.
“Forty-five degree angle.”
“Yup.” Tony’s unsnapping the buttons as if they’re so tiny he has to look at them really closely.
“Do you need glasses?” I ask, tossing the towel.
“Nearsighted.” He smiles and Goddamn if I don’t melt into a puddle right there.
Nothing Caspian said about Tony prepared my heart to grow three sizes. Whatever this guy needs, I’m gonna give him. He undoes the last button and puts on the shirt.
I’m gripping the screwdriver handle so hard it’s making grooves in my fingers.
I didn’t say goodbye. We weren’t prepared for this to happen this way. We weren’t even trying.
“Let me.” I snap Caspian’s shirt closed over Tony’s chest. This is weird. He even smells different. Like Ivory soap. “Shoes are here.”
I gather Caspian’s shoes and kick them into place for Tony. He sits again and puts both feet in at the same time.
“Here’s the deal. I need you to leave when I leave, but walk in the opposite direction. Wait for me outside. I’m going to tell them Caspian ditched me.”