Leveled

Chapter 18

Julia

“Tony! Are you okay?” I’m panicked. I know what was said just now, but I have no clue what just happened.

“I did it.” His eyebrows knot as if he’s doing math in his head.

“Jesus Christ, you’re shaking.”

“White as a sheet,” Tonya says.

“Dude, what was that?” Dan adds.

Tony blinks hard. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

We got back to the boat and onto the water quickly.

Tony never got around to passing out, but he’s washed his hands four times already.

Dan comes down, grabs a beer, and sits next to Tonya.

She spins all the way around to face him. “This is on you.”

“How was I supposed to know?” He cracks the top on his beer can. “He did favors for my father all the time.” The foam runs over his fingers and onto his table, but he’s stuck in place, eyes frozen on her. “Shit.”

“I cannot with you right now, you know that?”

Dan starts to say something. Maybe an apology. Maybe a defense. But Tonya holds up her hand and he snaps his mouth shut.

“He was talking.” She waves her arm in Tony’s direction. “Please. Go on.”

Tony leans on the edge of the table. He must have been digging around the bottom of Caspian’s bag, because the burgundy T-shirt fits around his biceps perfectly and the way it stretches across his chest shows off more than it hides.

“Here’s the thing. If we run, yes, he can come find us and yes, he probably knows…

I don’t know whoever from wherever. But chasing you is going to cost him.

” He pushes off the table and counts from his pinkie down.

“Money. Time. Opportunity. And his pride. Every day that goes by while he’s looking for people who aren’t from his territory, he loses credibility with people who are.

At some point, it’ll be cheaper for him to pretend he got his money. ”

“But in the meantime, we look over our shoulders? We didn’t even do anything.”

He goes to the sink to wash his hands again.

In my heart, I believe Tony has the answers, even though I know he doesn’t believe it.

My heart saw fearlessness in the parking lot, even though my head knew he was terrified.

Caspian had Tony’s superpower all wrong. It’s not money, though I’m sure he’s fine at that. Tonight, Tony wielded his humility like a weapon and his confidence like a shield.

Sitting here now, with the immediate threat gone, I realize how fucking hot that was.

“I’ll hold him up,” Tony says.

“Why do you think you won’t end up dead?” Tonya asks, getting up.

“His muscle is an off-duty cop.” He dries his hands.

“That means he’s not gonna kill you?” She grabs her purse and unsnaps it.

“Me? No. He won’t hurt me that bad.” The towel lands right in the trash.

“Pow. Two points. Okay, look. The cop’s only going to go so far…

with me. And by the time he’s done, you guys will be long gone.

Did Julia tell you what I did for a living?

Yeah? Okay, so this is just part of the job.

He’s not gonna walk away without a broken bone and bruised balls.

Promise. But if there are two of them and one of me… ”

“Am I invisible?” Dan asks.

Dan is very visible. He has real talents. We got off Catalina Island because of him. He sacrificed the day-to-day care of his business to help us, but he’s not going to give or take a beating. I’m not going to be the one to tell him that.

“You see this nose?” Tony taps the bridge. It’s straight and fine as fuck. “Never broken. Not once. Not with a fist or a two-by-four. What’s your excuse?”

Tony points at Dan’s nose. His good looks made the crookedness too charming to notice, but now it’s in my brain forever.

“It was a five iron.” Dan slaps away Tony’s hand. “And an accident. I wasn’t out looking for trouble. Can I suggest something? Or is my name mud around here?”

Tony sits next to me and puts his hand over mine. The skin is cracking.

“Go on.” Tonya’s either reserving judgment or killing time while she roots around in her purse.

“It’s not up to me, but maybe you just pay him. Tonya said the job was a third more than your usual rate. Right?” He pauses for her, and she nods. “Gerry takes half, and you’re only out twenty more percent.”

“That’s not how percentages work. Here.” Tonya tosses Tony a tube of shea butter lotion. He catches it. “For your hands. Keep it.”

“Thanks.”

“If you have Vaseline, put it on over the moisturizer.” She gets up. “Keep it on as long as you can. It’s an occlusive. Locks it in.” She pats her man’s shoulder. “Dan and I are going to speak on this. You coming, honey?”

Tony’s handling the ups and downs of ocean life better tonight than he did before. Maybe because his entire face is between my legs and his dick is in my mouth. Concentrating hard must be some kind of cure for seasickness.

“I had a moment,” he says afterward. “I thought I was going to puke in you.”

“Tony!”

“Did I? No. I had it under control.”

He pulls me into him. I lay my head on his chest.

“I wonder if we should get Enzo out to help with the Gerry problem.”

“Yeah… no.”

“Why not?”

“Because Lorenzo’s a smash-first, ask-questions-later guy. I’d probably disappear back into the level and then you’re left trying to keep a lid on him. Without Giancarlo, he’s just a hammer looking for a nail.”

“What about Giancarlo then? Could he help?”

“Giancarlo would replace Gerry in a week and get sixty percent out of every transaction in Newport Beach.”

“Wow. Efficient.”

“Yeah. But first, you’re going to have to sit him down and explain about the cameras everywhere and the way the Feds work now. You don’t want him to be the first chisel ever convicted on RICO charges.”

It’s a good joke, but told with an edge of sadness.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“You miss them.”

“I do.” He holds me tighter. “That doesn’t mean I’m not happy with you.”

“I know that.”

“But we’d have this figured out for you. All of it. A place to live. Gerry. That lawsuit. Everything.”

We lay in silence while the boat rocks gently. He’s reminded me that I need to get photos off my old phone, and I can’t do that without Caspian. It just goes on and on.

Whatever my problems are, they’ll get sorted out. New ones will appear and nothing will change. But Tony’s separation from his brothers is heartbreaking.

When I realize he’s not asleep, I break the silence.

“When Caspian and I were trying to understand what made him switch, we had a theory.” I pick up my head.

His expression is casually curious. “Maybe it’s my orgasm that brings you guys out.

But in the restaurant, you changed before I came.

I have this hunch it’s really my attention. My sexual attention, specifically.”

I don’t want to go into the details of Caspian turning back into a screwdriver while I was thinking about how hot Dan was, so I hope he just trusts me on this.

“Go on.”

“Coming just forced my attention on whoever was getting me there. We tried everything, and that’s what we came up with. When we were trying to get you out, it was the same thing. You were the tool, but I was focused on Caspian.”

He nods, waiting for the payoff.

“So,” I continue after a pause, “if I could pay attention to you and one of the guys in their tool shape, at the same time, sexually…”

I say the last word really slowly, and he’s following along, but he’s not getting it. He’s still waiting, and it’s right about now that I realize how hard it’ll be to suggest this.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.

I’m hinting around the fact that Caspian told me something that may or may not be true or could be the product of a misunderstanding. It’s something that men can be really sensitive about. And if I say it with an ounce of judgment, I could pluck the wrong string.

“So, you don’t have to be mad. I’m not implying that you could be, like, gay or bi or…”

“I’m sorry,” he says, stiffening back a little. Fuck. This is one place guys don’t like to go. Shit. “Have I given you the impression that, in my whole life, I never had a dick in my ass?”

That he what?

“Wait. Okay. Stop. Back up. I… have no impression whatsoever.”

“Julia. A man’s clit is in his rectum.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“If you want to try it…”

“I do, but I was thinking something more specific. It involves Caspian.”

“As a screwdriver?” He narrows one eye, as if he isn’t asking me my intentions as much exploring his own boundaries.

“There’s an issue of consent. You know how you guys are when you come out of it. He’ll literally be fucking you.”

“Okay, this may not help, but it might.” He puts the Vaseline next to the screwdriver. His dick is rock-hard. “Caspian and I grew up together. He was open-minded then. He’s open-minded now.”

“I don’t want to traumatize him.”

“I don’t think you can traumatize him by making him do what he’s already done.”

“You can. You absolutely can.”

Also, is Tony saying he and Caspian already did it?

That doesn’t equal consent now, but it does soften the icky feeling.

There are four tools. They all want out of their toolness. This consent issue is going to come up over and over, and until an inanimate object learns how to communicate psychically or grow a mouth and lungs, it’ll never be resolved.

We kiss and roll around on the bed. He wets his dick between my legs, sliding up and down without entering me. I finger his ass. I’ve never done this before, but I know how I like my asshole handled, and I give his the same treatment.

He rubs his dick against my seam harder and faster, holding my face as if he wants to see my face when I come.

He gets his wish. I get out from under him and grab the Vaseline.

“Lie back.”

He rolls over. “Be gentle with me.”

“Trust.” I pop the jar open and take out a few fingers full.

Crouching beside him, I put his cock in my mouth. He groans with an awestruck, “fuck,” and fists my hair while I rub the lubrication on his ass, circling the rim, teasing it open. When I take him all the way down my throat, I slide my middle finger in and feel around.

“Fuck!” He pulls my mouth off his dick.

“This is good?”

“You found it.”

“This?” I circle a hard lump on the dick side of his rectum.

He throws his head back and prays. Damn. I work in a second finger and find the lump with both. His chest rises and falls with my speed. How have I never done this before? It’s amazing.

“Slow down, or I’m going to…” He ends in a groan.

I go painfully slowly. He twists onto his side as if he can’t bear it. I pull out my fingers.

“Stay still,” I say.

“You’re killing me.”

“Good.”

I look at my fingers. They look okay. I give them a once-over with a disinfectant wipe. The screwdriver’s already been taken care of, but I give that a once-over as well, then I put fresh Vaseline on it and kneel on the bed. Tony’s toes are on the floor and his cheek is on the mattress.

“How do you want to be?”

“I can’t move or I’ll come.”

“This is fine then.” I kiss his lower back. “If I do something wrong, you’ll let me know?”

“I will.”

I insert my fingers again. He’s still loose. His reaction is so hot that however long this takes, I want it to go on even longer.

“Okay, here goes.” I slide the screwdriver into his ass. I hold the tool by the deep ridge at the base of the handle and no farther. I don’t want him to be some doctor’s ER story. “Am I there?”

“Just about.” He pushes back, getting another eighth of an inch deeper.

“Tony?”

“Oh, God.”

“If you change back into a level and I can’t get you back for some reason, I want you to know, I had a really good time. You’re wonderful.”

He looks at me over his shoulder. “Same, Julia.”

I reach around for his dick, stroking it while moving the rounded head of the screwdriver’s handle against the clit in his ass.

He shifts and grinds as I try to maintain this dance of screwdriver and man.

He groans and spasms. The handle ridge stays in my fingers as I pump it in and out, jerking him off in some kind of rhythm.

Then he goes stiff and I lose my grip on the screwdriver, because it’s gone.

Caspian is there.

I gasp and step back.

“Cas,” Tony squeaks. “You’re here.”

He’s fucking Tony slowly, deeply. He curves himself to the shape of his friend and kisses his shoulder.

I can’t believe they’re both in front of me at the same time.

“I’m here,” Caspian whispers in Tony’s ear, reaching around to finish the job I started. “You’re so close.”

“Julia.” Tony grabs my hand and squeezes it.

Caspian grabs the back of my neck and kisses me. They both come. Together. Real bodies in the same room. With me.

I did it.