Taming Blake (A New Adult Romance): The Complete Trilogy (20 page)

I laughed and shook my head. “Not yet. My only completed project so far is some guy’s apartment … But I’m looking for more work.”

Some guy’s apartment …

“Um, Jessica,” Josh said, leaning forward in his chair, his big eyes flashing with a new intensity.

Some guy?

“I know we’ve only known each other less than an hour but …”

Some guy who you are totally head over heels in love with.

“Well, I guess I just wanted to say that …”

I felt like I could tell just where Josh’s conversation was going, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear him say it — didn’t want to hear him say just how excited he was that we’d met, and then ask me if he could see me again sometime.

Things were too complicated
already,
with Blake. No, I didn’t need this extra thing adding to the mix, too. It looked like perhaps I wasn’t cut out to play the field after all.

“Josh, I’m really sorry but I think I’ve gotta go,” I blurted out, interrupting him, causing his face to fall in confusion as I began gathering my bag and getting up out of my seat.

“Oh, okay,” he mumbled. “Well, wait … Here’s my cell.”

And with that he began scribbling his number down on the back of the bill for our coffees, thrusting it hopefully out towards me.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him.

“I’d love to see you again sometime,” he said, with such a genuine warmth it knocked me back a little.

“It was great meeting you,” I said, picking up my bag. “But I’d really better go.”

I turned and walked out, quick as I could through the cafe, out through the gallery doors, finally gasping in the cold November air, feeling a little like I might suffocate.

As I headed towards the subway, I realized I was still clutching hold of the receipt, the one with Josh’s cellphone number scrawled on it.

I’ve got enough little pieces of paper haunting me right now already.

This is just one thing too many.

I couldn’t let this go any further, my life was complicated enough as I was. And most of all, he seemed so good, so kind and honest, and if I’d let things continue any further, I’d only end up hurting him.

Goodbye, Josh.

This is for the best, trust me.

Without taking another look at the piece of paper, I screwed it up into a tight little ball as I walked, then dropped it behind me on the sidewalk.

“Wait,
where
are you going again?” Fallon asked, hanging around in the doorway to the bathroom as I was fixing my makeup.

“I already told you … A party.”

“A party with Blake? And you’re going like
that
?”

“Yeah,” I said, putting the finishing touches to my mascara, then taking a few steps back to look myself over in the small oval mirror. “How come?”

I felt a rush of satisfaction — I was really getting the hang of makeup now, knowing which parts of my face to accentuate, which colors to use to bring out my eyes and my cheek bones.

“In
those jeans
?” Fallon said, cutting in.

“Sure,” I shrugged, at first unable to see her point. “Why not?”

But as my eyes strayed down, from my immaculate makeup to the rather dowdy rest of my outfit — a plain old blouse, a beat up pair of blue Levis, and my trusty Converse sneakers — I guessed she did have something of a point. At any
normal
party, I’d have to pay a little more attention to what I was wearing. But of course, what Fallon didn’t know was that these clothes would be hitting the locker room floor almost the moment I set foot through the door.

See you on Friday
…

Once more, Blake’s words ricocheted around my head. It
was
Friday. It was just after eight o’ clock, and almost time for me to leave.

Maybe it was masochistic of me, but I knew I just had to go to that party. I simply had to find out what was actually going on between Blake and I, and I knew that something like this would be a perfect testing ground. After all, he wanted me there, didn’t he? That’s what his note had said. So I’d swallowed back my nerves and decided to play along with his strange cat-and-mouse game just a little longer …

“Well, it’s up to you, but I don’t know why we bothered going on that shopping spree if you’re just gonna throw on those old clothes,” Fallon mumbled. “If
I
had a pair of Alexander Wang pants, I’d wear them
everywhere
, even to do the laundry.” She sighed. “Man, I’m so
bored
. I wish I had somewhere to go this evening ...”

I tried my hardest not to pick up on her hint, taking another satisfied look at my reflection, turning my head to the side a little, as Fallon listlessly began flicking through her collection of nail varnishes (nearly all of them black). She snuck me a sly glance.

And then, not being one to beat around the bush, she just flat-out asked me. “Can I come, too? Please?”

I hadn’t told her
what
happened at these parties, in fact, I was pretty sure I was never going to be able to pluck up the courage to tell her. You see, even someone as open-minded and punk rock as Fallon might still find the whole thing a little …
odd
.

“It’s gonna be
really
stuffy and boring,” I said, trying to put her off, hoping I was convincing, despite my rather strange outfit. “It’s totally not going to be like the kind of parties you normally go to.”

“I don’t know …” she replied. “I might enjoy it ... Maybe I could bag myself some billionaire of my own!”

“Just trust me on this,” I said, catching her eye in the mirror and shooting her an ‘I’m being serious’ look. “You really
don’t
want to come.”

§

“Ticket please.”

There she was again: that same sultry, green-eyed figure that always seemed to be guarding the door to Blake’s parties in her cloak and mask, wearing nothing else but a pair of dangerously high heels and a knowing, sexy smile.

As I handed her my ticket, I wondered if there was something about her voice that I found familiar.

Have I met you before somewhere?

The thought that real life was crossing over into this, my secret double life, unnerved me slightly. But I told myself I was just being silly. After all, this was my third party, and of course the same people were going to be here. And maybe I was just getting — at least
somewhat
— used to this strange new way of behaving.

As I headed down the corridor towards the locker room, I found myself thinking again about just how oddly liberating these parties were, and how maybe I
had
met that girl at the door somewhere before, and maybe I’d met lots of the people at these parties before, too, in real life, only our masks and our nakedness meant that we remained hidden, mysterious, anonymous to one another …

But when I pushed open the heavy wooden door to the locker room, I saw someone who definitely
wasn’t
mysterious or anonymous. Because there was Gina – one of Blake’s previous conquests, the girl I’d met that first time in his apartment, and the girl who’s wrists he’d bound at that very first party -- her red hair shining, her flawless milky skin glowing, as she slipped her flimsy dress from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, revealing her ample breasts beneath, large and pert with big round dark nipples.

“Well, hello,” she said, catching me in her startling blue eyes for a moment. “I
know
you, don’t I?”

“Yeah, I’m a …” I began, then didn’t know quite how to word it. “I’m a friend of Blake’s, too.”

At this, her mouth curled into a smile and she nodded, more to herself than to me, as if to say, ‘Aren’t we all, honey.’

I took a space at a nearby locker and nervously began to unbutton my blouse, feeling my heart pound as I came to terms, once again, with just how
strange
this all was.

Gina, meanwhile, exuded nothing but confidence. All she was left wearing now was the skimpiest little g-string, and as she leant forwards to slip that off too, I caught a quick glimpse of her immaculate Brazilian beneath: the exact same fiery red as the hair on her head.

“Well,” she said with a wink, now fully naked, save for a pair of sparkling gold high heels, a delicate, matching gold belly chain, and of course her mask, “I’ll see you inside, sweetheart.”

When she pushed open the door to the main room, I heard the heady rush and thump of music and, at a lower volume, a few breathy sighs and moans. And I felt my pulse quicken, not so much from nervousness this time around, but from
excitement
…

§

It felt so strange. Here I was, back in this crazy place again, and this time I wasn’t even wearing any panties. I glanced down at my naked body in a state of disbelief, and it felt like some kind of silly anxiety dream. Only this was really happening, I reminded myself. I was actually here. Again. And so was Blake … somewhere.

Where are you?

I found myself hanging back, remaining in the shadows, as if they might protect my modesty. But it was no use. Despite my hiding place, I felt many pairs of eyes on me: hungry eyes gazing from behind their masks, male
and
female eyes, all grazing over my tingling bare flesh, just the same way my gaze was wandering around the large central chamber of this strange underworld place.

The club seemed much busier than I’d ever seen it, and as before the participants in this huge free-for-all seemed, to a person, young and hot. Just a few meters to my right, for example, were two sexy young athletic girls, practically mauling a hunk, one riding on top of him, her bare breasts bouncing, while the other smothered his face with her sumptuous ass, grinding herself eagerly back against him.

Meanwhile, over to my left, one muscular guy was kneeling before another, jacking his own cock as he sucked on the large tool there in front of him, while two smiling women watched on, whispering and giggling amongst themselves, their own hands straying between their legs, obviously getting rather turned on by this little show.

And in the very center of the chamber was a writhing, seething tangle of multi-colored flesh — a heaving churning mass of sweaty, moaning bodies, all seeking out their private pleasures from one another with an almost animal intensity.

I looked at the orgy, and realized just how easy it would be to get involved. To let myself get pulled into it, to rub myself eagerly against those many sweaty bodies, to feel a hundred hands and mouths exploring my body …

Go on ...

Do it ...

What’s stopping you?

But still I hung back. I was waiting to find Blake. Because he was here somewhere, wasn’t he?

I was about to go off exploring down one of the many corridors that led away from this central chamber, when I finally caught sight of him and my heart skipped a beat. It’d been almost a week since I’d last seen him, and I still felt hungry for him, hungrier than ever before. But even so,
I held back in the shadows, wanting to observe him just a moment longer before he saw me. Wanting to get a sense of what he was like when I wasn’t around …

My eyes moved over his muscular chest — his skin a little more tanned than I’d seen it, obviously from hours spent in the Spanish sun — and down past his sculpted abs to that place between his legs that I’d begun to crave. His cock looked half-hard: thick, long and pink but not fully erect yet, not fully hard and curling upwards the way I’d seen it, and I felt glad that he wasn’t completely turned on
just
yet. After all, I wanted to be the want to get him hard.

I took a step towards him, about to move out from my place in the shadows, when I saw a slim blonde girl take a confident step towards him and begin to rub herself right up against him like a cat on heat, whispering something in his ear, her long right leg curling around his, her hard pointy nipples grazing against his tanned flesh. I held back, watching to see what might happen next, willing Blake to push her away, to shake his head, but instead, to my horror, he turned eagerly towards her, his cock stiffening and raising a little, his hands moving to her waist, his face moving down towards hers, initiating the kiss.

Get your damn hands off my man …

I felt a flash of rage, but knew there was little I could do. After all, that was the whole ethos of the evening, wasn’t it? Do what you want,
with who you want,
without any of the usual, real-world repercussions.

Of course.

That was why Blake had wanted me to come, wasn’t it?

He wanted me to get over any feelings of jealousy I might have, by seeing him with other women, to make sure that I didn’t think we were totally exclusive.

Because nothing Blake Matthews ever did was accidental.

No, this was his way of sending me a message, loud and clear. Letting me know that I’d never get totally close to him.

With a mixture of horror, anger and envy, I watched transfixed as the stick-thin blonde ground herself eagerly against him, her hand slipping between his legs, her fingers curling around his manhood, slowly and sensually jacking him as she kissed him. And as she did so, his cock grew larger and harder in her slender grip, and his hands slipped down from her slim waist to her ass, which was large and pert.

Two can play at that game, Blake.

I pulled my eyes away from them, casting nervously around the dark chamber, when who should I see but that muscular blonde boy who always seemed to be walking around serving champagne from a tray. He smiled when he caught sight of me, and I found myself locking eyes with him, my mouth curling in a mischievous, devilish little smile.

He seemed to know just what I was thinking, too, intuiting my movements by putting down his tray on a nearby table, his cock already hard and twitching, his sculpted young body glittering with a thin sheen of sweat.

I strode confidently towards him, feeing my nipples harden and my pussy softly begin throb as I realized with amazement just
what
I was planning to do next.

That strong, confident girl inside me was taking control once again, you see ...

Before I could change my mind, I let myself drop to my knees before him, letting my fingers run down this stranger’s taut, muscular body, before clasping around his hot, hard cock. I shot a final glance over in Blake’s direction, the blonde still curling herself around him —
is he staring at me now?
— and then closed my eyes as I took this stranger’s cock into my mouth.

I felt him swell a little, and as I began to slowly masturbate him as I bobbed my head, running my lips up and down his shaft. I felt my own body tingling with anticipation as I sucked him, turned on at the idea of what I was doing: never in a million years would I have thought I’d ever end up doing something like this, giving head to a complete and total stranger, in front of a whole room of people, no less!

I increased my motions, feeling him begin to tense and throb against my tongue, and I kept my eyes closed, wondering if Blake was watching me now …

I felt the stranger’s fingers move into my hair, and then with surprise I felt him pulling hard, lifting me back upwards by my ponytail.

What the hell?