I ticked off one finger, inches from his face. “One, Jimmy doesn’t have to know shit, and two,” I ticked off the other, “this isn’t some little tryst. She lives with me. She’s my girlfriend.”
“She’s right here,” she said, raising her hand, looking annoyed that I was talking about her like she didn’t have a say. “And Jimmy doesn’t have to know anything. Not that I ever saw a rule against interpersonal dating when I signed my contract, but if no one tells him, there’s nothing to worry about. Which, then, begs the question whether you’re going to tell him or not. Because, and maybe I’m just biased, but I get the impression that you’re a bit of a snitch.”
“I just think this is a terrible idea, for you guys to work together and—”
“Fuck each other?” I interrupted. “You can say it. I’m sorry you miss out on the verb all the time. Must be hard having a fire crotch.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and I knew what too, but Perry was quick and leaned toward him. “My foot is aimed at that same shin, so you better watch it.”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, running his oversized hand through the red sea on his head. “When did the two of you become so volatile?”
“When you started insinuating shit and threatening to tell Jimmy that Perry and I are together. When did you start caring so much about what we do?”
“When I had to work with you.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. There was something hesitant in his eyes, the twitch of his brows. There was something else but I wouldn’t get at it tonight.
“Anyway,” I went on. “So what is the deal with Rose? You banged her and then what? Banged someone else? She banged someone else? She was your one and only unrequited love?”
His eyes darkened over that last part and I admit I felt a little bad. It was enough to shut me up.
He licked his lips. “We dated and we broke up. It didn’t end well.”
“Who broke up with who?” Perry asked.
“Does it matter? What’s done is done.”
I felt like asking the serious question. “Are you still in love with her?”
He gave me a wry look. “What do you think? No. I got over that shit a long time ago. I had to. It’s just a bit weird to be back here and back with her. She’s changed, too.”
The waitress brought over our food and I doused my crispy oysters with Louisiana hot sauce before asking, “How so?”
“She’s harder. That’s all.”
“So she wasn’t always the type to want to blow my head off with a shotgun?”
He smiled, close-lipped. “I reckon not.” His smile faded and he paid attention to his food. “But I guess I’ve changed too.”
“Well you’ve obviously upped your jackass levels.”
“Yeah. I guess this is just what people call the human experience,” he said before shoving a large shrimp po-boy in his mouth. He took a huge bite and sighed happily. “Now this tastes like home.”
But with cryptic comments like that, sometimes I had to wonder where exactly Maximus’s home really was.
***
By the time the three of us returned to the bed and breakfast, I was three sheets to the wind. Not stumbly drunk, but horny, loud, enthusiastic and hyper drunk. I kept wanting to drag Maximus and Perry into bar after bar in secret hopes of climbing on stage and taking over—it seemed like every single bar in the French Quarter had live music of the highest quality. But Perry was onto my scheme and the two of them basically forced me back to my room.
We quickly said goodbye to Maximus and I was eager to attack the living shit out of Perry behind closed doors. All that urge for music and no release meant I had extra energy in my blood, my dick hard as a rock and ready to go.
I also had my plan. Which was an incredibly immature plan, but a plan. And even though part of me felt for Maximus at times, his sob story over Rose wasn’t enough to eradicate that he slept with Perry when she was possessed, manhandled his way on to our show, and had some major problem with Perry and I screwing each other’s brains out.
So I decided to emphasize that very point. The walls between our rooms were paper thin and I was about to take Perry to whole new levels of orgasm. I was going to f**k her like she’d never been f**ked before, and I was going to make sure Maximus could hear every single one of her moans.
I quickly locked the door behind me and started pulling off my clothes.
Perry smiled, blushing. “Dex, at least let me close the curtains.”
I nodded at them. “Close them then. Then get back here and start stripping for me.”
She frowned good-naturedly. “You’re certainly bossy tonight.”
“I’m a lot of things tonight,” I said. I walked over to my carry-on and peered inside. Yup. The vibrator was still there. I knew Perry was fairly inexperienced with sex so there was a good chance she’d never used one with anyone other than herself, and even on her own I couldn’t be sure.
She walked over to me and I told her to take it all off.
“Slowly,” I added.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down? We could re-enact the scene from True Lies.”
“Oh, baby, what we’re about to do will never be in any James Cameron film.”
She looked a bit nervous at that, so I walked toward her and helped pull her shirt over her head. “Do you want me to help you?”
“I think I got it,” she said. I stepped back a foot, her br**sts still in groping distance, and watched as she shimmied out of her jeans.
“Don’t you think we should turn off the lights?” she asked, that strain of insecurity breaking across her brow.
I steadied my gaze at her, making sure she felt the heat coming off of it. “I want to see every single part of you. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Show me.”
She reached behind and undid her bra, and my erection twitched. I’d never felt so thick and so hard before. Even she was impressed, and I’d been impressing her a lot lately.
She slipped off her underwear next and tossed it across the room with a flick of her foot.
I grinned. “Perfect. Now get on the bed, all fours, facing the wall.”
She hesitated but I grabbed her around the waist, pressing her full br**sts against my chest, my c**k a pylon of steel against her. I kissed her hard, my tongue twisting and snaking with hers, my lips engulfing her wet ones. Then I pulled back, feeling dizzy with lust, and ordered her to get on the bed again.