19 - Say You, Say Me

Petey stepped into the elevator and straightened the collar of her jacket.  Jon’s doorman no longer batted an eye at her, merely nodding as she sailed through the lobby.  She might have to get the dog collar back out just to shake him up a bit.

Although, in his defense, today was an exceptionally conservative look for her.  Black skinny pants with asymmetrical zippers on the sides of the legs, platform Mary Jane heels, and a form-fitting silk sweater with a keyhole neckline.  In plain black. Even her topaz contacts were conservative – just a light brown, really.  Shaking her loose hair about her shoulders, she almost felt like she should be going to a PTA meeting.

She smirked naughtily. 

But they didn’t promise multiple orgasms at a PTA meeting.  Guess that meant her PTA was Please, Thanks, Another.

Promise notwithstanding, she was slightly pissed about his need to invoke a confidentiality clause, and more than slightly suspicious about the real reason behind it.  He’d refused twice now to go out with her.  That could be because he valued his privacy, or because he was embarrassed to be seen with her and tarnish his sparkling reputation. 

The only reason she wasn’t in his face demanding to know which? It served her own purposes.  With her past crawling around and trying to drag her back into its clutches, flying under the radar was a definite plus.

She pushed the buzzer, waiting patiently and wondering what he would be wearing tonight.  The other times she’d been here, he’d been decked out in the epitome of casual wear – shorts or track pants and a t-shirt.  It edged a very surreal situation a little further into reality, if that made any sense.  She may be screwing a rock star, but he seemed a whole lot like a normal guy in his at-home wardrobe.

“Hey.” 

The famous smile was in place, albeit more genuine than a lot of the photographs she’d seen.  As he ran his hand up the side of the door and leaned into it, she took the opportunity to check out his bare feet, well-worn jeans and white button-down shirt.  Half the buttons on the shirt were wasted.  The soft, white material lay open from neck to mid-chest, proudly displaying his black beaded necklace laden with charms.  

“Hey yourself,” she returned, dragging her eyes up to lock onto his.

“Would you like to come in?” A hand waved in invitation, drawing her attention to the folded back shirt cuffs that emphasized his lightly haired and muscled forearms.  As every other time she’d seen him, he was wearing a heavy watch on his left wrist.  This one was silver, with a black face.

“Thank you,” she murmured, heels tapping on the foyer tile.  Unbuttoning her jacket, she let it slide down her arms and moved to hang it in the coat closet.

“Let me.”  Strong fingers wrapped around hers where they held for a moment before removing the coat from her grasp.  Her pulse kicked up at the electricity crackling between them, and she couldn’t help but let her eyes drift to his backside as he put a hanger in the jacket. 

The un-tucked shirt hid most of it, but there was enough visible to assure her that the fit of his jeans was top notch.

“No pink tonight?”  His eyes raked her over from head to toe, stroking her with their blazing blue heat.  For a moment she feared her nipples would be visible through the thin, tight sweater she was wearing.

“Not that you can see now.”

She felt a surge of power when his nostrils flared, pulse pounding at his jaw. 

“I won’t say I’m surprised, but I am pleased.”  Jon stroked the skin of her cheek a single time with the back of his knuckle before swiping it with a kiss.  “Would you like a drink?”

Their fingers became tangled when he took her hand and led the way toward the bar.  The sensation of their palms sliding together and his fingers snugged against the webbing of hers was ridiculously intimate.

This may be something else that needs to be a rule…

“Please.”

“Beer?”  He slid a questioning look her way and accessorized it with a charming half-smile. 

What is a freak like me doing here with one of People Magazine’s sexiest men?

In response to her internal inquiry, a passage from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” pushed its way to the forefront of her mind:

“But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. 

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." 

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. 

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here.”

Definitely mad, she thought.  

“Whatever you’re having is fine.”

The questioning look intensified.  “You like wine?”

“Sure.”

Why did this feel like a date?  Because he’d asked her to come over instead of baldly stating that he wanted sex?  Because he was pouring her a romantic drink, as far as drinks went?

“I have to say one more time that the wine and charm aren’t – “

“If you tell me this is just sex,” he interrupted with a raised hand and stern scowl.  “I swear to God I’ll have a shirt made that says ‘I just want to fuck you’ and wear it the next time you come over.   Do we have an understanding?”

She demurely accepted the wine and nodded her head, suddenly wondering if it was him she felt the need to remind, or herself?  It was time to take control of the situation.

“So…  Bedroom?  Bar?  Living room?  You have a preference as to where you want to do this?”

“Petey,” he chastised, locking their fingers again and guiding her to the living room.  “I was admittedly a man-whore last time.  Let me try and redeem myself a little bit.  At least sit and enjoy your drink.”  Smoldering eyes.  The phrase had been coined with him in mind, she was sure of it. “Besides, prolonged anticipation will make it more intense.”

She gulped as he settled on the couch and pulled her down beside him.  The coarse denim of his jeans scraped against the zippers on her thigh, sending jolts of awareness through her limbs.  Outer thighs pressed together, his heat seeped through their two layers of clothing to lightly scorch her skin.

More intense than before?  More intense than this?  Holy shit…

Lifting the glass, she gulped it too, although inconspicuously.  Placing it carefully on the table, she lifted her face to find his eyes affixed to her mouth.

“What?”

“Your lips.  They’re red instead of pink.”

“I was feeling a little vampy tonight.”

His lips slunk upward in a carnal leer.  “Does that mean you want to suck me?”

She laughed before she could stop herself.  Why did his humor surprise her every time?

“I thought you were complaining about the bite marks last time.”  A suggestive wink accompanied her teasing.

“That wasn’t the kind of sucking I meant, baby.”

“I choose to play innocent and pretend that I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she simpered sweetly before turning the tables on him.  Jon Bon Jovi had begun to bite mercilessly at her curiosity.  “Can I ask you something?”

One light eyebrow stole upward in shock.  “How bad do you wanna know the answer to your question?”

Petey should’ve known this would turn into a negotiation.  He was, after all, Jon Bon Jovi the consummate businessman.

“What will it cost me?”

Dragging a thoughtful thumb across his chin, he shamelessly drank in the cleavage exposed by the open neckline of her sweater.  The laugh lines framing his mouth creased more deeply.    

She was suddenly…  Pick an adjective, any adjective - apprehensive, aroused, anxious. 

“To quote one of my favorite movies, ‘Quid pro quo'.  I tell you things, you tell me things.’”

Closing her eyes briefly, she darted through her memory banks to match the reference to its movie.  Aha.  Her lids flew open, golden eyes shining.  “Anthony Hopkins said that in “Silence of the Lambs”, right?  Jesus, you’re not going to skin me alive are you?”

A startled guffaw reverberated through the room.  “No, Petey.  That’s not how I want to feel your skin against mine.  So do we have a deal?”

There was no doubt that she’d live to regret this, but Petey couldn’t escape the impulse to play with Jon.  To lure that sense of humor out more fully and see who he was.

“Deal.”

His hot palm came to rest atop her thigh, delight dancing on his features as he reclined into the sofa. “Excellent,” he breathed with satisfaction, tipping his head back to rest on the cushions.  Blue eyes contentedly fell shut and he invited her, “Ready when you are, baby.”

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” she began on a practical note.

He lazily rolled his head toward her, cracking open a wary eye.  “Really?  I kinda thought you’d ask something an internet search wouldn’t give you, but okay.  Four bedrooms plus two master suites.  All but my suite are on this level of the apartment.  The second master suite is the guest room and the bedrooms belong to my kids.”

She nodded, allowing his hand to slip from her leg when reaching for her wine glass.

“Ready for mine?”

The base of the stemware tipped toward the ceiling and she drained the contents with a delicate sigh.  Restoring the glass to its coaster, she nodded again.

“God, Petey, it’s not the firing squad.  You have to boost your courage with alcohol just to answer a simple question?”

“Simple?  I doubt that.  Go ahead.”

He considered her for a moment, before evenly stating, “I now know that the black hair isn’t a dye-job, but your natural color.  I can’t help but wonder what color your eyes are.  It’s been bugging me since the first day we met.”

She rolled gold irises to the ceiling.  “Talk about a wasted question.  They’re just blue.”

“Are the contacts corrective or cosmetic?”

“That’s two,” she reprimanded.  “What happened to ’Quid pro quo’?”

“So I owe you one.  Corrective or cosmetic?”

He got so intense when she actually answered one of his questions, immediately latching on and asking another before she came to her senses and clammed up on him.  It was kind of cute.

“Corrective.  I’m myopic.  Near-sighted.”

Jon appeared to mull it over before nodding at her to go ahead with her next one.

Lifting tentative fingers to his left bicep, she traced the faint outline of his Superman tattoo through the white fabric.  “It used to be colored.  Why don’t you get it touched up?”

“Because it’s who I used to be, not who I am."

“You no longer think of yourself as invincible?”

It had only been a hypothesized guess, but the shadow flickering through his eyes proved she was right.  “I’ve never really thought about it, but yeah, I guess.  Every birthday makes you that much more aware of your mortality.”

Bending at the waist, Jon reached for her feet, shucking both shoes off with a clatter and leaving them bare except for sheer black stockings.  He gingerly twisted her around on the sofa cushion and brought the stockinged feet to rest in his lap.  Picking up the left one, he began to masterfully manipulate it into a state of relaxed mush.

“If you’re going to get all deep on me Petey, my next one isn’t going to be a fluff question.”

“You keep massaging my feet like that and I won’t care.”   The man knew how to give a foot massage.

There was that sexy chuckle again.  “Remember… I warned you.  Why won’t you let me kiss you?”

A firm thumb expertly dug into the arch of her foot.  Its steady ministrations released tension all the way up her calf, and it felt so good that she really didn’t care to answer.  “It’s too intimate.  I don’t need or want intimacy in my life.”

“Sugar, lots of things are intimate if you let them be,” he informed her softly, moving up to the ball of her foot with his intoxicating touch.  “Sex is intimate.”

“Not the way we do it.  That’s why there are rules.”  Her protest sounded muzzy, even to her own ears.  Had she only had one glass of wine?

“This…”  Each toe was being stroked into a lazy submission as he spoke.  “…is intimate.”

She might buy that.  It was making her awfully aware of her intimate places.

“I still want to eat your pussy,” he breathed, pressing a kiss to her arch as his hands worked smoothly up over her ankle and calf.  “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, completely enamored by what he was doing.  “Couch or bed?”

Instantly, Jon was on his knees, nudging her thighs apart with two strong hands so that he could crawl in between them.

“Couch.”