Without Scars (15 page)

He peeled off his t-shirt suddenly.
This is never going to get old.
I tried to keep my eyes on his face, not that he’d mind me ogling him. “All right, I’m gonna shower. No freaking out while I’m in here. Or I’ve got more places for you to shave,” he said, winking.

“Promise I wont.”
I want to see those places. Not shave them.
I hopped down and walked out just as he was stripping his jeans and boxers off. I didn’t need to see more of his body while mine was charging down.

Okay, so…I took a peek over my shoulder and got a glimpse of a very sculpted butt.

“Definitely not as nice as yours…” he said, startling me. “Admit it.”

Crap. He’d seen me in the mirror. “Shut up and shower!” I slammed the door shut. After I carried Charlie’s bag to my room, I got into my costume. I thought it was better to get dressed at home and wear something over it that was easy to take off. The first performance of the night, which my Mayhem character was a part of, involved sexy black bodysuits, and cool black wings that I would put on right before the show started. I threw on a gray cotton t-shirt dress, touched up my makeup, and left the room to give Charlie some privacy. I had promised no freaking out, so I did everything around my apartment to keep my mind off the show—cleaned, rearranged, put break-and-bake cookies in the oven. Even did jumping jacks. What I wanted most, though, was a drink.

I’d only be able to stave off the craving for so long. I needed to go to a meeting. They had been a regular part of my life once: first, as a requirement of my probation, and then because I really did need them. If I was going to be this stressed all the time going forward, I had to consider that the brick wall therapy wouldn’t be enough.

“Hey, Nik, could you come here a sec?” Charlie yelled through my bedroom door. He looked so handsome when I walked in that I sighed. He was dressed in a plaid shirt—unbuttoned—with a graphic white t-shirt under it, and dark wash jeans. “We’re good enough friends to talk about anything,” he said. No inflection in his tone.

Not a question.

“Yes,” I said, speaking carefully. He was prefacing something. Where was this going? Back to our conversation at the theater?

“That?” He cocked his head to the right. My gaze followed. Oh.

Shit.
I swallowed. My big black vibrator was still on my nightstand. When you lived alone and didn’t have many guests over—especially unplanned ones—you didn’t always put everything away. But I wasn’t going to be embarrassed, either.

Just turned on that he’d seen it.

“What do you want to know?” I said with my best poker face, approaching him. His stare seared me with every step, but this look was different. Like seeing my Body Wand had given him a new lens to view me through. I braced myself, too, imagining that this was the moment I had been expecting and dreading equally the entire span of our friendship. He was going to mock me now, morph into one of those men who didn’t get the point of vibrators when it was
raining
dicks out.

“Uh…umm…” Charlie gulped down when I sat. For the first time ever, he appeared uncertain in his words, in himself. He was fiddling with the edge of his shirt. Oh my gosh. Hilarious because Charlie Dara was no shrinking violet. “Remember I told you about Sami’s episode? We keep calling it our most anticipated one ever. Well, in one scene she’s using Chuck’s computer for a school thing and comes across one of those porn blogs in his web history. She’s curious, so she looks. And she gets so turned on she—”

“Fingers herself?”

“Uh…yes…right there at the desk.” He nodded. Haltingly. I snickered inside. Charlie Dara didn’t halt. “I want it in there like Samira approved it, but Hillington is being weird. They want me to change it because she’s not…weird about masturbation.” He paused and cleared his throat.

“What are you asking me, Charlie?”

“S-s-so, if you were Sami and doing that…what I’m asking is…is there…a way you do it?”

“I like the way you’re describing it. Not with candlelight and music or anything like that. It’s not romantic in the cliché sense. For me, it’s not romantic at all, actually. It’s me playing with myself. I just want the rush and quick release,” I said, speaking with confidence. Charlie’s pupils grew and shrank in a single heartbeat. His clenched jaw pulsed. It was as though the more frazzled he got, the more self-assured I became. I was being truthful but getting him all worked up was exhilarating. The flood of desire in Charlie’s eyes was empowering. But the lust growing inside my own belly had me biting the inside of my cheek. The room went up twenty degrees around me.

“I’m not ashamed about knowing my body so intimately, either. I
should
know it. How else would a woman understand the kind of stimulation she likes? See her nipples get hard. Feel the tremble in her legs. Know how wet she gets. Feel her pussy clench around her fingers…”

“Right.” The word was said in a sharp breath from him.

“I hate the idea of a man
showing her the light
from the get-go. She should be
holding the sun already
, you know? I mean, show me a woman who owns her sexuality, and I’ll show you a woman I’d like to
fuck
…” I trailed off and smiled, stifling my laughter when his eyes bugged out. “If I were a guy, that is. Or into women.”

“I’m into women. I’m a guy.” Charlie fidgeted, moved closer, and just stared at me. “I’d love to fuck that woman.”

“Maybe for Sami, she is so turned on, thinking about you…” Tingles rolled across my arms. “Not
you
you
.
Chuck. She doesn’t even hesitate to touch herself.”

“Do you—
would Sami
—touch other parts of her body at the same time?” His voice came out in a whisper. I imagined his breath on my stomach. A soft beat pumped between my thighs. Heat was radiating through my skin from the inside out.

“Yup...”

“Do you usually have someone in mind?”

You.
I nodded slowly. “Most times. Sami would obviously have you—
Chuck
—in mind. It can heighten the experience, when you’re pretending. Like your hand is someone else’s...maybe even their tongue…” Didn’t I know it. “Say their name right before you lose control...” My gaze went to his lap when his legs shook. Charlie’s dick was hard. His jeans were keeping the bulge there so impacted it looked painful. “He doesn’t randomly walk in and it ends, right? She
comes
, right?”

“Shit…” he whispered, his gaze roaming me.

“Charlie, she knows how to make herself come, right?”

“Yeah…yes. Yeah. Of course. I would never finish anything without a woman coming.” Damn. I hoped he hadn’t heard me moan as he stood up and walked toward my bathroom. “Great. I’ll, uh, incorporate your thoughts into…um…yeah. Thanks for the…yeah.”

****

The Sinners simultaneously eased down onto the backward facing chairs as the contemporary version of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Too Darn Hot” ended. My heart rate was flying, both from the strenuous dance routine and excitement of the performance.

The crowd’s applause rose inside the theater. My cheeks were actually hurting from smiling so much. I could hear my friends shouting my name. They were hooting much louder than anyone else. I couldn’t wait to get out there to them. But we had to take pictures and greet fans first. Yes, Mayhem already had a small following, apparently.

Out in the lobby I waved to Charlie and he returned a strained smile as he watched me snuggle up to a few college guys who had asked for a photo. Then it was a bachelor party. A bachelorette party. Girl friends from Tampa out for a 21
st
birthday weekend in Miami. And finally a group of women who looked like they might be in my mom’s book club. 

When the crowd died down, I wrapped myself up in my silk robe with
Ms. Mayhem
scrawled in gold sequins on the back and went to talk with my friends. “Oh my God!” Lea said, squishing me in a hug. “You were so amazing. So gorgeous.”

“I have too much cellulite to do all that,” Denise said.

“You think I don’t?! All the girls were slathering on creams and using Saran wrap for an hour before the show,” I whispered to both of them. “I’m so glad you came!” I said to everyone else.

“I haven’t yet, Nikki. But it’s only midnight. Maybe if you hook me up with one of your coworkers…” Deacon said. Lea blushed. Everyone else groaned. He swung his arm around my shoulders, a conniving look that only his face seemed capable of forming appeared. Uh oh.

By the way, his t-shirt tonight: “That Chair You’re In Will Never Be As Comfy As My Face,” under a blazer.
A goddamn blazer.

“We were way in the back. Could you take off your robe and turn around and grab your ankles for a sec?” he asked.

“You first, Deek. You showed me how to do it in the first place.” We all laughed. Or so I thought.

“Shut the fuck up, Deacon,” Charlie said. The laughter cut off suddenly, like all the sound had been vacuumed out of the place. Everyone looked at him. He had spoken in an eerily calm tone, but he was staring at Deacon like his murder was imminent.

“Uh. She’s not mad, so what’s up
your
ass?” Deacon asked. He turned to me with a smirk. “We’ll be back to
that
ass
in a moment.”

“You really should shut the fuck up,” Charlie warned again. His hands were balled into fists, and his jaw set, teeth grinding. Jesus.
Are you serious right now?
I wanted to ask out loud. It was
Deacon Specter.
Sexual harassment was, like, his personality.

But who the hell was this crazy person with my best friend’s face?

“Make me, bitch,” Deacon responded.

Heart thudding, my gaze shifted between them. I’d only been worried about their friendship’s long-term survival before. Now I think all of us were just waiting for the animosity to become physical. And when it finally happened it would be bad.

A few of the other dancers and idling audience members turned their heads. My concern morphed into annoyance. Were these two trying to get me fired on my first performance night? I pulled Charlie away from the group and led him outside to the street before the argument escalated.

Charlie trapped me against the side of the building with his arms suddenly. His expression was still solid with anger. One of his knees brushed both of mine. Rocking against them. “I don’t care if you’re mad at me right now; he was being a dick.” His gaze went from my eyes to my mouth.

“What? Since when? Not
Deacon!
This is a long-established fact, Dara. Deacon is the
Almighty
Supreme Leader
of the
Republic
of I’m a Dick. He takes his job
very
seriously. You’ve been aware of this for more than a decade. It’s not breaking news. Why the outburst?
This is my job
, you know.”

Charlie’s knee split my legs. I let Charlie’s knee split my legs. I hugged it between my thighs. His tongue swiped the small space between his parted lips. He squinted all defiantly. Jesus fuck, Charlie was so damn sexy. “I know that. He was just—”

“Being Deacon, Charlie. I can handle him. Chill out.”

“You chill out.” His gaze drifted to my mouth again. “He was going on and on about your ass!”

“Like you’ve never looked at my ass!”

“Yeah, I
look
! I don’t say things out loud!” Charlie stood straight and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t like how he was talking to you.”

“You’ve literally made a joke about me bending over before, Charlie. But the truth is you haven’t liked
anything
tonight, have you? You’ve had a bad attitude since we got here.”

He had the best seat out of our friends, and I could see him frowning the entire freaking time I was on stage. He didn’t participate during our audience appreciation number between acts; instead, he’d sat there arms crossed and brooding. There had been a few seconds of booty shaking! I’d seen my ass enough to know that it was really not a moment to sulk. Almost ruined the whole night for me.

“I’m not in a bad mood, Nik.”

Yes, he was. And now that I was thinking about it, he had been since before the show. My mind raced. Maybe things were getting weird. No, they were definitely weird. Because right now Charlie was riled up. And it was clearly more than Deacon. The earlier conversation wasn’t all that different than how we’d talked in the past, but
we
were kind of different. Truth be told, we were just sort of dangling over a relationship by the last friendship thread.

When was the last time I’d had a friend’s leg essentially between mine?

Um, never.

Shaking his head, Charlie folded his arms around me, but his body stiffened as he kissed my forehead. “You were awesome tonight, baby girl. Deacon
was
a dick but you’re right; I was too. I’m sorry. We’ll see you in a few.”

Um, okay. He stepped back and turned away from me. Sighing, I walked inside, found a dark corner, and changed into my outfit for the after party.