33 - Want a Hit

With her embarrassment now under control, Delaney dried her hands in the suite’s powder room, and then started pulling pins from her hair.  The quasi-sophisticated style was well on its way to deterioration after her tumble on the cushions, so she figured she might as well finish the job. 

Fluffing the freed tendrils with her fingers, she felt like a giddy high school girl who’d just done something appalling with a boyfriend on her parents’ couch.  She’d definitely done something on the couch but couldn’t find it in herself to be appalled about it – as long as he didn’t tease her about humping his face. 

The man’s touch was… incendiary.  First, in mauling her butt and then sliding inside her penis fly trap as though he was the new owner.  When he started orally molesting her lady flower, it was like a switch inside her flicked from normal person to wanton hussy. 

The words that fell off her tongue would shame a Greek fisherman.  Crude anatomical references and precise instructions on what to do with those bits of anatomy bubbled out as readily as the orgasm he sucked from her core.

A faint throbbing of that core told Delaney it was up for another, and since he hadn’t had his first, she was optimistic about the chances for a repeat.  Jon didn’t seem like the type who would call it quits at this stage in the game, and the blaze of blue irises when she’d cupped his jaw predicted an exciting second half.

Slipping out of her shoes, she used two fingers to hook the straps and brought them along when exiting the powder room.  With any luck, this might even go into overtime.    

A glance at the couch revealed that he was no longer there, and Delaney slid her eyes to the other end of the room.  He was at the bar again, refreshing their glasses, and his appearance had her drawing up short. 

Bare feet and jeans would always make her mouth water, but with hair disheveled by her orgasmic frenzy and a shirt that hung unbuttoned because of her greedy hands….  He was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in real life. 

There was no air-brushing of his chiseled chest or the frosted hair covering it.  Perfection didn’t need touching up.  The “wine gut” he bemoaned was actually just a flat plane instead of concave, taking him from a faultless illusion to real man.  There wasn’t a thing about him that anybody in the world should consider Photoshopping.

How did any woman let him go?   How did a woman look at him and say, “No thanks, not interested anymore.”?  He was painfully easy on the eyes, talented, rich, hard-working, a good father and a really nice guy – from everything Delaney knew, anyway.  All that and he liked oral sex. 

Was Dorothea Bongiovi insane?

He insists he’s not nice.  There might be an ugly, dark side hiding behind that perfect smile. 

“I like your hair better down,” he complimented upon catching sight of her, apparently unaware of just how long she’d been gawking.  “What made you go dark, since I now have first-hand knowledge of your real color?”

He considers the color of your pubic hair a good topic for pre-dinner conversation.  He could be a sadistic pervert.

His perversions to this point were a fair match for hers, though, and she stooped to put her shoes next to the couch. 

“There are a ton of psychological reasons behind a woman’s choice to alter her appearance.”

“And I’m asking about yours.”

Pursing her lips, Delaney accepted the drink and the heavy palm that guided her back to the couch.  “Wouldn’t you rather get laid?”

“Oh, I’m gonna get laid,” he stated as matter-of-factly as one would declare the sky blue.  “But a beautiful woman mentioned something about heightening the anticipation, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

“Um.  You realize that the anticipation took a nosedive off this sullied sofa, right?”

She sat on the far end of the sullied furniture, expecting for some reason that he’d sit on the near end. Past experience, she supposed, and he did at first. 

“Nah.  It’s still hang-gliding out there.  There’s plenty left to anticipate, Mou.”

Her uterus was still spasming in response to the seductive oath when Jon scooted over to eliminate the empty cushion between them.  He turned sideways, tucking a leg beneath him and parking the wineglass on one thigh while he rested his tricep along the back of the couch. 

"You called me that the night in Montreal, didn't you?  When I accidentally woke you up?"

"Did I?  I've been thinking of you that way since Montreal.  Didn't realize I'd said it out loud."  Picking up a few strands of her hair, he rubbed it between his fingertips and prodded, “So, why dark when it seems most women want to be blonde?” 

He obviously wasn't interested in talking about his pet name for her, and Delaney was feeling generous.  After what he'd just done to  her, she could afford to be generous.

“So people don’t confuse me with Petra.”

“Baby,” he chuckled.  “Twins or not, nobody’s gonna confuse you two.”

Her head tilted toward the hand still meandering in the dark locks.  “Yeah?  I never did ask if you thought she was me that day in the shop.”

“Not really, no.  All the right physical pieces were there, but my gut knew it wasn’t you.  She even carries herself differently.”

Delaney smirked into her wineglass.  She’d always told Petra there was a stick up her ass, but she didn’t want to talk about her sister.

“I was watching you over by the bar a few minutes ago.”

“I know.”  He didn’t appear to be surprised or concerned by her ogling.  At his age and in his chosen profession, dealing with the female reaction to his looks had to be just part of everyday life.   

“You’re a gorgeous man – inside and out, from what I can tell.”

A long-suffering sigh hissed out over a flattened mouth.  “Are we back to this ‘nice’ shit again?”

“No.”  The strong column of his throat beckoned her touch, and Delaney palmed it before using her thumb to smooth his jawline and ruffled feathers.  “We’re in a completely new place, wondering why you’re getting a divorce.”

Just like that, the warm, open man whom she’d spent the last hour – the only man she’d really known with this face  – changed.  He was taken over by a detachment cool enough to chill Delaney’s hand, and she let it fall to her lap in a loose fist. 

You’re not his friend, Delaney.  You’re his possession for the evening.

“Sorry.  Not my business.”

“I didn’t say that, so don’t put words in my mouth,” Jon ordered nicely, with his demeanor thawing a bit.  “I just don’t wanna think about my fuck-ups in the middle of foreplay, okay?  We can talk about it later.” 

“We don’t have to talk about it at all, but something else just crossed my mind, and since I don’t often keep those things to myself…”

A face-creasing smile fully returned him to what she considered normal.  “It’s one of the things I enjoy about you.  Go on.”

“Oh good.  In that case, is this a limited engagement performance?  One-night stand?  Rebound rendezvous to get you back in the…  Son of a motherless goat.”  The lightbulb went on above Delaney’s head and cast a very bright light.  “That’s what David meant by ‘Bounce’.  He knew I was going to be the rebound girl.”

The more she thought about it, the queasier Delaney became.  His friends and brother had known she was in Jon’s scopes since Madison Square Garden.  Thinking back on Jon’s reference to backstage as the band’s locker room area, she couldn’t help conjecturing how much locker room talk had featured her as the subject.

“Christ,” Jon muttered, tipping up his wine and putting the empty glass on the table before turning to her with purpose.  “I love Dave, but he’s a crazy fucker who makes up stupid shit to torment me, and that’s his latest.”

As unsettling as it was to her stomach, she was a grown woman.  There were worse things to be, and she took comfort in knowing he hadn’t drawn her out of a crowd like a bingo ball.  He’d knowingly shown up in her shop to seek her out after spending time together.  If nothing else, it proved he held more than a passing attraction. 

“You know what?  It’s totally fine.  I’m too old to be offended by honesty.  But what about the ‘Hall of Fame’ thing?”

“You’re not listening to me.”  Capturing her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted her face so that she could see nothing beyond two blue pools of grave exasperation.  “I never said that.  Never thought it.  The average person doesn’t fit into a neat pigeonhole, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t try cramming you into one.”

Delaney’s pulse hammered in her throat, creating a lump the size of her fist as she was transported back to another moment when he’d grown perturbed with her.  Now, like the instance when he told her to “answer the goddamn question”, her body responded to his autocracy.  Unlike before, she embraced the softening response, for there was no longer a reason to deny herself the pleasure.    

That’s why, when he released his grip to stroke her cheek, Delaney leaned into the touch.  

“I can’t answer your questions about what this is,” he told her in soft apology.  “What I can tell you is that I like you as a person, and I’m attracted to you as a woman.  Anything else, we’ll have to figure out together.”

If she was one of those dippy women who believed that cupids roamed the heavens, using their heart-tipped arrows to shoot people up with love heroin, Delaney would have been screwed about then.  A lesser woman would’ve been thumping her arm, readying for the needle, but she was a realist who had never believed in that kind of goopy Harlequin Romance snot.

Her marriage to Geoff came about for reasons having nothing to do with the kind of love Jon sang about with such passion.  The purpose behind that union was based on logic and honesty, and for all the good it did her, she should’ve stayed single. 

That ingrained cynicism allowed her to accept Jon’s answer at face value rather than painting it dusty rose with her favorite fan brush. 

“That sounds fair,” she conceded.  "But I still want to know about 'Hall of Fame'.”

Perfectly shaped lips puckered with disgust, and his eyes darted off to the far window with a soft swear before returning to her.  “Sooner or later, I’ll end up asking questions you don’t wanna answer.  You better be fuckin’ prepared to answer ‘em, anyway.”

There was only one subject she didn’t really want to talk about, and there was no reason to believe it would come up anytime, so she shrugged.  “Okay, but if you’re going to tell me it's about something gross, like getting inside me and plastering your sticky memorabilia on my walls, I’m not sure I want to know.”

His brow winged up while barking with surprised laughter.  “I don’t know whether to be scared for myself or you.”

“Are you freeping kidding me?  I don’t want to be right!”

“You’re not completely right,” he consoled at the pitiful groan, taking her glass and placing it on the table.  “The nickname originally came from Matt for a different reason, but Dave had to go all Jersey on it.”

“Then, please.  Tell me Matt’s reason so I can stop thinking about the ickiness.”

Lines creased around his mouth and the eyes that sparkled in the waning light from the hotel windows.  “You don’t want my memorabilia on your walls?”

“Hard no.  That’s a little squicky for my role-play taste.”

“Oh, I think you just found the first of my questions,” he drawled, slowly dragging the backs of his fingers from her jaw to collarbone.  The edges of his fingernails scratched just enough to make her nipples pebble at the sensation. 

“How ‘bout you just answer mine?”

Her soft rasp planted a knowing gleam in the depths of faded denim eyes.  “I’m tired of the anticipation, Mou.” 

“Katsa sta avga sou, impatient man.  All you have to do is answer me to get laid,” she whispered, welcoming the thread of steel in his voice.  Delaney was a passionate woman by nature, and sometimes a passionate woman required a firm hand.  She was excited that Jon might fill that role instinctively, without too much coaching - or judgment.

“I want to know what you just said.”

The thread of steel got just a little harsher, and she savored the hand draping her throat.  “Loose translation is ‘keep sitting on your eggs’.  Now tell me.”

“As soon as you tell me again how to say ‘fuck me’.”

The temperature in the room was growing unbearably warm as his hand shifted high on her throat.  His middle finger was touching one earlobe and his thumb the other, but there was no pressure – just a presence. 

“Gamíseis.”

“I’ll expect to hear that a hell of a lot louder once you’re spread eagle in my bed.”

Delaney closed her eyes and swallowed, completely enamored with the visual building in her mind.  She was stubborn enough not to admit it just yet, though.  “Tell me.”

The squeeze of his hand was gentle as he leaned in close, breathing in her ear.  “The day we met, I watched you walk down the hall with the security guard who escorted you out.  That’s when Matt nicknamed you ‘Hall of Fame’.  He said the only other time I’d smiled like that this year was in Cleveland, when we got inducted.  That made you the Hall of Fame.”

Hey lady.  Want a hit?

She hit the freeping cupid with a baseball bat and hoarsely demanded, “Take me to bed.”