Hung (8 page)

A
licia had good taste
. The black Aston Martin DB9 was by far my favorite car. Zero to sixty miles per hour in four-point-six seconds, ceramic brakes that could bring the elegant sports car to a halt on a whim, and more than five hundred angry, loud horsepower under the hood.

The car was beautiful. It was my baby.

I dashed to the passenger door and held it open. Watching Alicia step in, her gorgeous cocoa thigh breaching the slit that ran down the side of her dress and extending into the foot well, was like watching a scene from a James Bond film. I couldn't get my mind off how stunning she looked.

I checked my watch – a black leather strapped Breitling dive master that Mike had given me after my first tour. I realized that we were running late – the reservation was in only twenty minutes time.

I'd have to put my foot on the gas. It was a challenge I was more than willing to accept.

I opened the door and stepped in, taking a deep breath through my nostrils and enjoying the scent of the gorgeous Italian leather race seats. "Ready?" I asked, turning to my right. Alicia looked nervous – she had every right to be. This wasn't going to be a comfortable ride… She gave me a concerned little nod, and I took that as acceptance of what was about to happen.

I fired up the engine, revving it in the confined space of the concrete garage so loudly that it sounded like the starting grid of a NASCAR race. The garage automatically detected I was ready to go – I still had no idea how the designers had managed that – and retracted the door. I put the car into first gear and idled it out onto my gravel driveway. I wanted to light it up right then and there, but knew I had to hold back – the last thing I wanted was for some errant stone to chip the gorgeous black paintwork.

After all, I knew I could be responsible – at least when there was something I really cared about.

The gates of the enclosed courtyard swung open, and I cast one appreciative glance at the gorgeously manicured, backlit hedges that lined the imported Italian stone walls, and then we were out – on the open road.

"Time to go," I whispered, flicking the gear shift lever. I'd paid extra to get it installed on the steering wheel, and it had definitely been worth it. I felt like a racing driver as I flicked through second, then third gear and eased into fourth.

"Clay!" Alicia said urgently, and I looked to my side to see her gripping the leather hand rest to one side with one hand, and the center partition between us with the other so hard her fingers were going white.

I knew she wanted me to slow down, but we'd barely hit seventy miles an hour, and I knew the Aston Martin could hit almost triple that. And I had every intention of opening her up.

The five-mile stretch of highway opened up in front of me, strangely quiet for this time of night. It was perfect.

"Don't worry," I assured her, "I'm a good driver. Scout's honor."

And then I gunned the engine into fifth gear, and the needle on the dashboard hit red. We screamed past a hundred miles per hour and never stopped accelerating. I heard Alicia breathing as heavily as if I were lying on top of her, easing my cock between her legs, but knew I must be imagining it, because it was almost impossible to hear anything over the roar of the engine.

"Clay…" she moaned, but this time there was a different note in her voice – not concern, but elation. There was something indescribable about travelling at speed, a feeling I could tell Alicia appreciated as well. Seeing the world flash by at speeds that most of the population would never reach made me feel alive. And then I had an idea. I slowed the car, just fractionally, and put it into fourth gear, but allowed the revs to tick up on the dashboard so that the needle was firmly in the red.

The beautiful sports car began to shudder, just fractionally, underneath us, and then vibrate with an almost superhuman speed. I felt my hard, toned buttocks responding to the minor centrifugal force, and knew that for Alicia, the vibrations would be far more intense. For her, sitting where she was almost directly over the gearbox, it would feel like sitting on top of a washing machine.

She moaned again, but this time she wasn't terrified, not even elated – she was turned on. And just listening to her made my cock stiffen inside my pants. I started streaking through traffic, changing lanes every few seconds as I overtook car after car, but I didn't do it so that we could get to the restaurant any faster – no, I did it because every time I urged the car left or right, Alicia let out a breathy, throaty moan.

I had to ease off the gas as we reached the more built-up areas near downtown, and it was a damn good thing, too, because just listening to Alicia moan beside me was enough to tempt my cock to rip through the thin material of my pants.

"Hungry?" I asked, sounding far more nonchalant about what had just happened than I really was. Alicia swallowed and took a few seconds to respond.

Her eyes flicked downwards, and I could have sworn that she was checking out my cock, but she met my gaze a second later.

"Oh, I could eat…" she said sultrily.

All I could think about as I gently guided the sleek black sports car to a halt in front of the valet was that I didn't care about eating the meal – I just wanted to eat her.

"Is this it?" Alicia asked, excited, as we pulled up. Kikuchi was the hottest ticket in town, and by all accounts she had every reason to be excited. It was a Japanese sushi restaurant opened by one of Japan's finest sushi chefs, and it was nigh on impossible to get a reservation.

Far from impossible, of course, if your name was Clay Hunt…

"Sure is," I agreed. I'd chosen the restaurant carefully. I'd never taken another girl here, and I never would. I didn't want it to be tainted by the memory of any other woman, and I didn't want Alicia to think that she was just a notch on my bedpost, because she was more than that, so much more.

"I can't believe I'm about to eat here," she giggled, displaying a sense of girlish excitement that was so unlike her – or at least, so unlike the cold exterior she tried to display in front of me – that I couldn't help but smile.

"Not a dent, understood?" I said, tossing the valet my keys and shooting him a sharp look. If he was anything like I was as a kid, then the first thing on his mind would be taking a joyride. He quailed under my glare, and I knew he wouldn't dare.

We were showed to our seats by our waitress in a slinky black cocktail dress, her ass bobbing from side to side in a way that would normally have had me slavering at the lips for a chance to taste her. I'm almost certain Alicia was keeping an eye on me to check if I was staring, but she had no need. Even I was surprised, but I had absolutely no desire to check the waitress out. I only had eyes for Alicia.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" the waitress asked me, pushing her chest forward and pouting as she put herself on display. I was used to this kind of attention from women, but Alicia looked shocked.

"Please, ask my fiancée first…" I said, indicating Alicia and politely, but firmly, shutting the waitress down. This time, her pout was less than friendly.

"Oh no," Alicia said looking quietly pleased, "I wouldn't know what to order in a place like this. You choose!"

"A bottle of Bollinger," I ordered without even looking at the wine list. "The ‘92, if you have it?"

I knew they did, or if they didn't, they'd find one. After all, no restaurant worth its salt ever turned down the chance to sell a customer a two-thousand-dollar bottle of champagne…

The waitress nodded curtly and sulkily flounced off. I hid my grin.

"Did you see that?" Alicia asked me, looking aghast at the woman's behavior. "She was practically throwing herself at you!"

I buried my head in the menu. "Oh, really?" I asked, biting down on my tongue. "I didn't notice…"

Alicia cast me a suspicious look. "I don't believe you," she said firmly, and I knew there was no deceiving this beautiful, intelligent and piercingly aware woman.

“Alright, alright," I said, throwing my hands up, "you got me. Trust me, you get used to it."

"I'm not sure I could," Alicia said with her nervous look on her face. "How could any woman date you when they know girls throw themselves at you like that?"

"I'm not looking for just
any
woman, Alicia," I said earnestly. "I'm only looking for you. And trust me, she's not my type."

"Oh," Alicia said mockingly, "tall, skinny and Russian isn't your type? Next you'll be telling me you're a monk!"

I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to check the waitress wasn't in earshot. "Look at her," I said quietly. "Does she have your tits? Your ass? Your gorgeous cocoa skin?"

Alicia flushed. "Shhh!" she admonished. "Other people can hear!"

"I don't care," I replied. "I want the whole world to know how gorgeous you are. I want you to know it, too…" It was true. I didn't care who heard, I just wanted to break through Alicia's thick, closed off exterior and into her heart. I needed her to know that I wasn't just the player she thought I was – not with her.

The waitress returned with our champagne and poured it, acting decidedly more frostily than she had when we'd just arrived.

"Cheers!" I said, raising my glass to Alicia.

"What are we toasting?" she asked. "I've never had champagne before… Isn't it for special occasions?"

She was holding her champagne flute gently, almost tenderly, as though she were afraid to break it. I extended my arm and clinked my own glass against hers. "What's not special about this?" I asked. "I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman, in a lovely restaurant, about to have an amazing meal. Doesn't that feel like something worth celebrating?"

Alicia flushed,
again
. It was more or less becoming her default state around me, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy having that affect on her.

"Clay," she whispered, "stop."

I reached over the table and grabbed one of her hands, cradling it delicately in between my two, much bigger hands. "I can't, Alicia. Not around you." I meant it, and I could tell she knew. But she was clearly conflicted.

"We should eat," she said, reluctantly pulling her hand back and trying to change the subject. "I've never had Japanese before, well – not good Japanese, anyway. What do you recommend?"

"I'm thinking sashimi, some California rolls and some tuna maki," I said without bothering to look at the menu. Like always, I knew what I wanted.

"Shall we get enough to share?" she asked shyly.

"Anything for you…"

Two hours later, my stomach muscles ached from the amount of food we ended up consuming. The critics were right, Kikuchi really was the best Japanese restaurant in town, and probably the whole of America, too. I knew I'd be coming back, and hopefully with Alicia by my side.

I paid the check in cash, leaving a generous tip. It wasn't worth my time to get change, so I simply stood up and we walked out, arms linked. Alicia's warm, cocoa skin felt like heaven pressed up against my arm, and I could have taken her right then and there. Though if I did, we probably wouldn't be able to get another reservation…

We walked out at about the same time as another couple – a short, squat man who, judging by his pasty complexion, looked like he worked behind a computer screen all day and his
companion
, a plastic, bleach blonde woman who was either a trophy wife from the bargain bin or a cheap escort. I hated to judge, but compared with the beauty on my arm, she was nothing.

"Hey!" I heard the woman slur, discounting the noise as I picked the keys up from the valet and prepared to step into the idling Aston Martin, its engine gurgling and chuckling like a newborn baby. In the restaurant, I'd been slightly disappointed that I'd had to stick to two small glasses of the delicate, floral champagne so that I was good to drive, but when I returned to this dutiful, beautiful piece of British engineering, I knew it was all worth it.

"Hey, you – yeah, you, Clay," she slurred. I turned my head, confused.

"Clay, do you know that girl?" Alicia asked, looking scared. That sent my protective instincts into overdrive and I felt the hair on the nape of my neck bristling.

"Nah," I replied honestly. "It happens sometimes; ignore it."

"Is she okay?" Alicia called out selflessly to the woman's male partner, her moral compass clearly far straighter than mine.

"Hey, Clay, are you gonna let that black bitch fight all your battles?" the woman slurred, stumbling over towards the car.

What the hell?

I stepped in front of Alicia protectively. "Get in the car, Alicia. We need to go," I requested urgently.

"Hey, stop hitting on my girl!" the drunk, middle-aged man said aggressively.

For fuck's sake, can't I go anywhere without drama following close behind?

"Hey, buddy," I warned, flexing my bicep beneath my tailored Armani suit, "get your wife under control. She can't be going around talking to a nice lady like that. I don't care if she's drunk."

As far as I was concerned, the woman should have be locked up for talking about Alicia like that, and I was having to bite down on a rising tide of anger. I knew that if I succumbed to it, if I allowed it to swallow me up, then Alicia and I would be done – and that was the only thing keeping me grounded. But I didn't know how long I could last.

Alicia tugged at my arm. "Come on, Clay – ignore it. It happens." Judging by the sad look on her face, it happened far too often, and the thought made me sick.

"Why don't you date a girl who deserves you, Clay?" the drunk hooker whined. At this point, I didn't care if she was or wasn't a hooker because she was acting like the worst kind of street walker. I knew exactly what she was getting at – the implication was clear.

"I said," the short man said threateningly, "stop talking to my wife!" Out of nowhere, he limbered up one of his stumpy, fat arms and tried to throw a punch. I began to duck, already packing my shoulder and preparing to lay a hard blow directly into the douchebag's stomach, when my blood ran cold.

Alicia's behind me.