Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
SHELBY
January, 2013
I sat and watched as Jake walked away from the table. He looked mouthwateringly handsome in his slim cut black suit with a crisp white button down, the top two buttons casually undone. Jake wasn’t the tie type, opting instead for a funky little pocket square. His presence still felt so warm and solid, just like I remembered. And he still smelled so completely intoxicating.
I was tilted completely off my axis—finding this whole thing so surreal. Kendra covertly conspiring with Jake to make this happen was blowing my mind. She had tried explaining to me how this had come to be after she’d told me what Jake was doing there, but my brain was only able to process fragments of what she’d said. Something about an email she’d intercepted, and how she felt about watching us together on the show. I promised myself I’d press her for all the details later.
The thought occurred to me that maybe Kendra hadn’t just planned for me to have dinner with Jake. Had she thought maybe I was ready for something else? She’d casually been asking me about “getting back out there” in the last few months. At first, I thought it a little fast, but knowing how Kendra felt about Ari, especially in these last few years, I was sure she just wanted to see me happy.
I had been revving my engine a little with Bryce out on the casino floor, after all, so why not shift gears and do the same with Jake? I reached into my clutch to grab my lipstick and my compact. My fingers found the end of a foil packet and I pulled it out. A condom. And underneath it, one more. The ones that I had packed were tucked away in the outside zippered pocket. And were a different brand.
Kendra.
I smiled and warmed with affection for my brazen friend.
It was then that I made my decision. My body had been vibrating since the first moment I saw Jake. For the first half hour or so it was because of my nerves, but then for a different reason altogether. The chemistry we’d had on that day last May was noticeable to me, but this…this was different. We still had our banter and I loved talking with him, but this time we were able to add the physicality, and it was unraveling me in the best possible way.
It was obvious Jake was feeling this way, too.
I decided I was going to give my teenage self what she’d always wanted, even if in her innocence she couldn’t possibly have known all that would entail. Forty-one-year-old me knew well enough for both of us, and my imagination switched on in high definition.
The object of my sexual awakening was to be mine.
When I would make my videos, I would often channel sirens and femme fatales that inspired me. It gave me confidence and helped me get out of my head. Cherrie Bombshell was not only flirtatious, but she also oozed sexuality. I closed my eyes and called upon my muses. Marilyn. Betty Page. Dita Von Teese. Sabina Kelley.
I began to reapply my lipstick and as I did, I caught a man staring at me from the next table. My first instinct was to recoil and hope and pray that no one else had noticed. But I quickly remembered that “no one” was no longer a concern. If I was serious about slipping into my alter ego, I thought I might as well practice before Jake got back.
I tilted my head down and peeked back up at the man through my lashes. I smiled. The blush and sudden fidget in his seat told me everything I needed to know. He quickly overcorrected to keep his female dining companion from noticing what was going on and tried focusing all his attention back onto her. But he couldn’t keep himself from glancing back at me. This was a fun game.
By the time Jake returned, I was ready.
He slid into the booth. “Sorry about that. So, there’s this little speakeasy up the strip. I thought that would be a nice place to go for another drink?”
I angled my body to face him and put my hand on his. “I have a better idea. You have a room here, right?” He nodded as I bit my lip and paused for effect. “I think we should go there instead.” I slid closer to him, positioned my head in the crook of his neck, inhaled and kissed him in the soft, warm place behind his ear. I slid back a bit to wait for his reply.
He looked down at the table and a grin spread wide across his face. He looked up at me, put on a more serious expression and began searching my eyes. I nodded without having been asked the question.
Jake paused for a few seconds, his index finger rubbing back and forth across his chin. “Shelby, I want nothing more than to take you to my room. And…and you seem to have this fire in your eyes. I just need you to know that the reins are in your hands here. Anything you want or don’t want, it’s all up to you. I am at your service.” He trained his deep brown eyes on mine and ran his tongue over his bottom lip. He reached out and held my chin gently between his thumb and crooked index finger. “And at your mercy.”
I came close to breaking my resolve, nearly melting into a puddle, but I was able to stay steady. The only puddle I had to contend with was the one suddenly blooming between my legs. I arched my back, rolled my pelvis forward, and pressed the epicenter of my ache into the booth as hard as I could trying to eke out some fraction of the friction I was desperately craving. The smooth leather was giving me nothing.
We made our way to the elevator and as we stood inside Jake grabbed my hand. He leaned up against the back wall and brought my hand to his mouth gently turning it right side up. While maintaining his intense eye contact, pupils fixed and dilated, his lips crushed dry and soft against the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist. I felt the tiny flicker of his tongue, swift and hot, and I felt as though the elevator cables had snapped. It was all I could do to keep my legs steady underneath me, trying to maintain my cool seductress facade. I managed to quickly recombobulate myself, allowing a grin to curl the corners of my mouth letting him know the gesture was appreciated.
We stepped off the elevator and walked to his room with Jake stepping slightly ahead of me to unlock the door. He turned to look back at me once more before he opened it all the way. Another silent question, and once again, I nodded my yes.
We crossed the threshold, and he turned to face me. He stood still, inviting me to come to him—it was clear he meant it when he’d said everything was up to me. I moved slowly toward him, our eye contact never wavering. I reached out and touched his cheek as I moved the whole of my body in against his. I raked my hand through his hair to the back of his head and pulled his mouth toward mine.
Our lips locked in an instant. That perfect amount of suction that indicates a kiss is wanted. Needed.
Within seconds of the connection, however, he pulled back, angling his face away from mine as I found myself lunging after his lips. I felt a pang of rejection, thinking maybe he was having second thoughts.
He reached a hand up to my face, framing my ear with his fingers and his thumb caressing my cheek. With his other hand, he traced his fingers over my forehead followed by a thumb over my bottom lip. His unblinking eyes following every trail of his touch. His fingertips grazed softly down my neck and back up again. He was considering me. Studying me. A sharp pinch of self- consciousness caught me, as if he were able to read my thoughts and somehow know all the secrets of my soul.
Jake’s chocolate eyes were hot and intense as he licked his lips, and when he pulled theminto a half smile, my stomach hit the floor.
I was thrust back in time. It was as if he’d pressed rewind on this whole scene and on my whole life and I was standing at the door with the sudden awareness that the boy I’d been on a date with was going to kiss me goodnight.
It wasn’t butter flutter butterflies gently batting against my insides. Instead, forty or fiftycaged pterodactyls thrashed and threatened to violently burst their way out.
He inched his face closer to mine and I closed my eyes. It was all I could do to keep from shuddering when his soft lips first brushed against mine. It was the perfect escalation of intensity, starting languidly tentative, the most delicious tease. It continued then with the curious exploration of lips and of tongue tips, pulling away to readjust facial angles, then coming back together, each time laced with a little more greed until we were fully consumed in one another.
Jake’s kiss was both commanding and yielding in equal measure. A completely unfamiliar concept.
Ari’s dominating kisses had been a means to an end, intense and cursory, not unlike wide open mouth tongue wrestling in porn. I’d always find myself coveting characters in movies who seemed to kiss in order to convey everything they weren’t able to say.
And now it’s me in the movie.
Cherrie was faltering, swooning. Contemplating just giving in. Trying to convince me to just allow ourselves to be washed away and drown in this moment. In Jake.
But I couldn’t lose myself. Control was something I had grabbed onto with all my might, and I was afraid it was the only thing allowing me to participate in this adventure. I couldn’t just be along for the ride. No, I needed to write and direct the whole thing—it was the only way I could possibly know how it would end.
I shook Cherrie by the shoulders and told the bitch I needed her to get it together and stick to the script.
I pulled away, smiled, and started walking toward the window. I glanced around in a quick reconnaissance to see what I could have at my disposal, spying a square ottoman opposite the sofa. I knew exactly how I was going to play this.
From halfway across the room, I kept my back toward Jake as I pulled my hair to one side. I unzipped the back of my dress, slowly pulling it down my arms. Once gravity got hold of it, I let it fall to the floor. I could feel Jake’s volcanic stare as I was sure he was noticing my stockings, garter, and thong. Also, likely, my lack of bra. I liked this tease. I would stay still until he came to me.
Which was in a nanosecond.
He was pressed up against my back. Kissing up the side of my neck. His hands moving across my stomach and over my breasts. “My God. You are so fucking beautiful,” he said between mouthfuls of my skin. Skin which had erupted in goosebumps so intense, I was convinced I’d sprouted quills.
I reached up behind me and tangled my hands in his hair. I could feel his erection pressed against my back and I began to move my body up and down a little, offering him some well- deserved friction. A low growl signaled his appreciation.
I turned my body around and our mouths found one another again. This time, just as I could feel him completely consumed by the moment, I was also pleasantly surprised at being able to notice the more subtle cues of a man’s desire. I pulled away from the kiss bringing my hands to his chest to feel the rapid fire beating of his heart. The heaving as he struggled for breath. The dilation of his pupils as his eyes burned into mine. It was deeply intense, but without any hint of darkness. I began to unbutton his shirt.
His hands moved over my body. I began silently pleading for them to land where my need was the greatest, me aching in a way I hadn’t for so long. It was tortuous. I spread my legs a little, hoping he’d take my cue.
With his palm flat against my stomach, he slid his way down. Making his way between my thighs, he cupped me at first, and then pressed more firmly with his middle finger, gliding back and forth over the slippery surface with just the whisper of lace between us. I whimpered and dug my fingers into his shoulders, bending my knees trying to connect more firmly with his hand.
“Damn.” His breathy whisper made me shiver.He inhaled sharply, licked his lips and bowed his head. I didn’t need psychic abilities to know he was imagining what it would feel like to be inside me. What I might taste like. Another wobble in my resolve I had to quickly brush off.
I unbuckled his belt teasingly slowly and began to unzip his pants. He held up one finger to me and reached into his back pocket, producing a condom. “This is not me being presumptuous. This is me being prepared.” He smiled a mischievous smile, “And extremely hopeful.”
He slid his pants down and took off his socks. He watched with fascination as I unfastened my garter clasps and slid off my stockings. He then closed what little distance remained between us and with gentle fingertips, he traced around my waist and the edges of my thong.
He got down on his knees and planted angel soft kisses on my stomach and hips. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to tease me or to draw out the moment for his own sake, but he choreographed the removal of my last remaining item of clothing off to be slow and deliberate. Millimeter by painstaking millimeter. He drew his tongue along my sensitive bikini line and looked up at me as my thong finally breached my hips and slid down my legs. As he shifted his gaze downward, his lips parted, and I could feel his breath heavy and ragged as he beheld me. On his knees, with his hands on my hips, staring straight ahead at the place that may very well prove to be his undoing, he whispered, “Shelby.” It was a benediction.
Cherrie nearly fainted.
I brushed off the momentary loss of control and regrouped once again.
I led Jake by the hand toward the ottoman, hooked my fingers in the waistband of his boxer briefs and carefully unveiled his erection. My mouth reflexively dropped open as my eyes captured an image far better in reality than any I’d conjured in fantasy. If each person who appreciated a dick were able to design the perfect one to suit them, this would be mine to a T. It was fucking beautiful .
I pushed his chest gently, encouraging him to sit on the ottoman. I knelt in front of him, his eyes widening in wonder. I wrapped my hand around his length and stroked him, while maintaining my eye contact. Saliva filled my mouth, and I was tempted to taste him, but I resisted.
My stomach somersaulted as the realization hit as to who this was and what I was doing. A huge smile spread across my face. Oh, goodness. Innocent, adolescent Shelby wouldn’t know what to make of any of this— sweet, summer child that she was.
I took the condom out of his hand, opened it and unrolled it over him. He watched my every move, riveted.
I stood, held his shoulders and swung a leg over to straddle him. It was my turn then to draw out the moment. As desperate as I was, I managed to grasp him and stroke his tip gently back and forth across my threshold. My muses were encouraging of Cherrie’s tease.
Jake used this proximity to cup my breasts and tease my nipples with his tongue. There needs to be much more of this in round two , I thought to myself. I knew I desperately needed to take my edge off, however, otherwise I could so easily have lost control again.
I lowered myself slowly down the length of him. Jake’s mouth opened as he tilted his head back, a baritone moan escaping from deep inside him. “God, Shelby. Fuck, you feel so good,”he hissed.
I loved my name in his mouth.
I loved the reason.
Every centimeter I let him stretch and fill me, little fires were being extinguished along the way, easing some of my ache. Filling my desperate hollowness. Once I sank fully, I began to move back and forth on his lap, grinding and finding as much friction as possible. He grabbed my ass cheeks, pulling and pushing along with my rhythm, but not taking control of it. Not changing it.
I could feel my climax fast approaching. Everything was so deliciously slippery, and I was hitting my friction just right. My heart was pounding as the gates opened and that exquisite first wave of dopamine released, like the moment the roller coaster crests the top of the hill. This was where I wished I could exist forever. As the wave crashed and dazzling sparks of light flashed behind my eyes, I threw back my head and screamed. I rode all the way through my orgasm, blissfully full and long. I was vaguely aware that even as my muscles clenched around him, Jake hadn’t joined me just yet.
As I came down from my high, I decided I would take a beat, and then continue my rhythm for him to finish.
The beat I immediately regretted.
In that split second, a wave of a different sort overtook me. A megaton wrecking ball of realization hit as to where I was and what I was doing. And not in a good way like before.
Cherrie Bombshell and the muses had left the building.
I had been so busy pretending to be someone else, pretending to be ready, I hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe I wasn’t. At all.
I tightly shut my eyes trying to push away the onslaught of intrusive thoughts.
I began to tremble uncontrollably. Blood rushed in my temples and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I couldn’t catch my breath.
There were two choices here, and I had to decide fast. I could either fall apart and be reduced to a pile of naked rubble on the floor, or I could react…differently.
I chose the latter.
I cocked back my arm and slapped Jake across the face as hard as I could.