Dix laughed and Brandon joined him. Dix shook his head. ‘Listen, kid, I can’t pretend I get it, but if it makes you happy and makes her happy, who the hell cares about anyone else?’
‘I guess it doesn’t make her happy, or she’d have said yes. Man,’ Brandon said, aware he was not too drunk to want to explain but a little too sloshed to make sense. ‘Shit. Well. Whatever. I told her what I had to say, and if she doesn’t want it I guess that’s it. Nothing else to do about it.’
Dix still looked amused, but before he could say anything else, Brandon’s phone rang. The ringtone, a clip from Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’, didn’t sound too loud compared to the bar’s raucous atmosphere, but the photo of Leah told him it was her. He thumbed the touch screen immediately, listening. He didn’t have to say anything. Leah said it all.
‘Get over here, Brandon, and fuck me until we both can’t stand.’
He ended the call and sat back against the seat. ‘She says she wants me to get over there right now.’
Dix raised a brow and set his glass down. ‘And?’
The Penny Pincher had looked a hundred times worse after seeing Leah’s suite. Not only that, but after a few hours of fake tits in tiny bras and tight, tanned asses jiggling in glittery thongs, Leah looked a thousand, no, a million times better.
‘Fuck taking a stand,’ Brandon said.
Dix clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, kid, there’s not a damn thing wrong with being a booty call. Let’s get out of here.’
12
KATE MUST’VE ANSWERED the door, because when Leah came out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth and washing her hands – she didn’t want to greet Brandon with nacho breath or stripper oil on her fingers – he was standing in the doorway.
‘Well, hello.’
Part of her had known without question he would come at her command. Part had wondered if she’d pushed him too far, finally, and if he’d rebel by not showing up. The uncertain part had been bigger than she wanted to admit, because at the sight of him, Leah let out a low, slow breath of relief.
‘Did you have a good time with Dix?’
Brandon smiled. Fuck, she was such a sucker for that grin. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to the floor. Her gaze followed it, then looked back to his face. Oh, she was in over her head this time. And she totally didn’t care.
Off came his buttoned shirt to follow the jacket into a heap on the floor. Brandon tilted his head to look at her. ‘Should I be doing this to music?’
Oh how much she loved him, for something as simple as a tossaway line of self-deprecating humour. Leah laughed, more relief sweeping through her. Things were going to be OK.
‘No. I’ve had enough of that tonight.’
‘You sure?’ He swivelled his hips. ‘I could put on some Lil Wayne. Rock your world.’
‘Come here, Brandon.’
He did at once, stepping up against her, his hands on her ass and rubbing through the denim of her jeans. ‘Yes.’
She’d taken off her shoes and had to stand on her tiptoes to find his mouth. He tasted of beer and smoke and whiskey and Leah retreated a little even as his lips followed hers. ‘What did you and Dix get up to?’
Brandon nuzzled her neck as his hands caressed her rear. ‘Decadence. Naked women, booze. Cigars. Oh, and before that, we had … steak.’
His tongue slid along her throat and Leah let her head fall back to give him free access. ‘My God. No. Not steak. How can you come here and face me after that?’
‘I feel so dirty,’ Brandon said against her skin as his hands roved higher and pulled her closer. His teeth pressed her skin and Leah held her breath, her nipples tight and her cunt throbbing.
Leah wasn’t much into punishment, even for play, and truthfully, there’d been few enough times Brandon had failed her in any way major enough to warrant something like that. She laughed, though, low and throaty, and pushed back from him even though denying him access to her body was just as bad for her.
‘Naughty,’ she told him just to watch his eyes flash. ‘If you’re so dirty, maybe you should clean up.’
Her gaze flicked to the open bathroom door. It wasn’t a bad idea. The smell of the club still clung to her clothes and she was pretty sure the seat of her jeans had oil stains on them. Besides, the bathroom in this suite was orgasmic.
‘Huh,’ Brandon said with a quirk of his mouth. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
Leah took a couple steps back, watching him, but his long arm snaked out to grab her wrist and draw her back to him. He kissed her, not hard, but thoroughly. His tongue stroked hers, and she stifled a moan, her eyes fluttering closed.
He started walking her towards the bathroom, step by step, breaking the kiss just long enough to reach upwards over his shoulder and pull off his T-shirt. Leah’s feet hit cool tile as her hands found Brandon’s warm, bare chest and tight nipples.
She tweaked one and it hardened further under her fingers. She had to taste him, her desire sudden. Urgent. She kissed his chest and licked his nipple, then skidded her teeth over his flesh. His hand cradled the back of her head as she looked up at him.
‘I want to suck you,’ she breathed against his belly, where the muscles jumped at her touch. ‘But first. Shower.’
He looked that way and let out a long, low groan of pleasure that made her laugh and straighten.
‘Brandon!’
‘Look at it,’ he said, awed at the glass brick and waterfall showerhead. ‘Steam jets, Leah. And it’s so big.’
‘Big enough for you, baby, I know,’ she teased.
