I should’ve jerked off a second time this morning.
Considering it was the first time in my life that I was officially dating someone, you’d think I wouldn’t have to take matters into my own damn hands. Who knew dating meant stroking multiple times a day.
I glanced over at Gia sitting in the passenger seat. She had on a royal blue silky shorts romper thing with the shoulders cut out. It made her legs look like a mile of smooth skin. I wanted to come on all of that, too.
I raked my fingers through my hair. What the fuck is wrong with me when it comes to this girl? She’s sweet and clean, and I want to hear her talk dirty and soil her up. Last night, I tried so hard to keep shit professional at the restaurant. But when she bent over to pick up a stack of menus that fell from the storage room across from my office, I couldn’t help myself. I locked the door and sucked on those gorgeous tits until I got her to say she couldn’t wait to feel my cock sliding between them. And now, even on the way to my mother’s house, I was barely holding my shit together.
Gia kicked off her sandals and put her bare feet up on my dash. “So is the house your mom lives in the same place that you grew up?”
“One and the same. She’s been there for thirty-five years.”
“That means I’ll get to see where you slept as a teenager?”
“Yep.”
“I bet you were a handful as a teen. Bringing girls back to your room and what not.” She scrunched up her nose. “On second thought…I might not want to go in that room.”
“Come on. We can pretend we’re fourteen again, and I’ll feel you up while sucking your face and pressing a lead pipe into your hip bone.”
She laughed. “Fourteen? Is that when you started feeling up girls?”
From her reaction, I figured it best to not tell her it was more like twelve. “Somewhere around there.”
“That’s young.”
“How old were you the first time you got felt up?”
“Eighteen.”
My eyes flashed from the road to her to see if she was kidding. She wasn’t.
“Eighteen is a little old to go to first base, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Boys must have been hounding you growing up. I’m guessing the late start had nothing to do with lack of opportunity.”
“No. I was asked out a lot. I just…”
I side glanced over at her. “You just what?”
“I don’t know. In hindsight, I think I might not have wanted to let my dad down. My mother had acted irresponsibly by having me and taking off. He put so much into raising me. I just didn’t want to disappoint him.”
All of the girls, and most of the women I spent time with as an adult, had the opposite goal in life. They wanted to piss of their fathers. I’d always kept away from the daddy’s girls, telling myself they were prudes. But suddenly I wondered if I had kept away from those girls because I didn’t think I could live up to the standards they had. Gia definitely had high expectations and that scared the crap out of me.
“I saw the way your father looks at you, the way you two interact, I don’t think it’s possible for you to disappoint him.”
She smiled. “Anyway, to get back to our conversation. I never had a boy feel me up in his bedroom. But I did let Robbie Kravit put his hand under my sweater in the back row of the movies when we were seniors in high school.”
“Is it fucked up that I have the urge to punch Robbie right now?”
She giggled. “Well, now you know how I felt over the last month…women stopping into the restaurant to proposition you while wearing little leather skirts.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “I didn’t invite any of them.”
She looked out the window, quiet for a minute and then said, “Can I ask you something?”
“When a woman asks if they can ask you something, it’s usually not something I want to answer.”
She laughed. “Were you with any women since we met?”
“No.” I’d almost gone there the night she’d jumped into that fight. But honestly, I had forced myself to reach out to another woman just so I could stop thinking about Gia, and I’m doubtful if I would’ve even gone through with it if I’d shown up. “I wanted to be with someone because I thought it might stop me from obsessing over you, but I never actually did it.”
She nodded and said nothing. Which made me fucking paranoid. Does she have something to confess?
“Were you with anyone?”
“No. I’ve only been with one other person in the last year. And like I told you, that was a total mistake. I got lonely and fell for the nice guy routine because I missed feeling a connection with a man. But I realized after he left me with the wrong number that sex doesn’t satisfy the connection I missed.”
I shook my head. “Now I want to beat the crap out of the asshole who played you, too. For a variety of reasons. The first being that he got to be inside you and I haven’t.”
Gia rested her hand high on my thigh, and I almost swerved out of my lane. “We can fix that you know?” she said. “I’m not the one making us take it slow. We just passed a Holiday Inn at the last exit.”
I groaned. “You’re going to be the death of me, woman.”
“Hi!” My mother opened the front door and engulfed Gia in a big hug before even acknowledging me. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
The two of them started complimenting each other on shit immediately.
“I love your necklace.”
“Blue is your color!”
“Did you change your hair?”
I rolled my eyes. “What the hell am I? Chopped liver?”
My mother stuck out her bottom lip. “Awww. Does my little boy feel neglected? Come here. Give your mamma a hug.”
Well, now it just feels forced. But I didn’t give a crap because my mother’s the shit. I squeezed her tight, and it felt freaking awesome.
When she pulled back, she looked between Gia and me with the most excited face I’ve ever seen on her. She clapped her hands a few times, barely able to contain her enthusiasm. “Come in. Come in.”
The house I grew up in was small, a typical Cape Cod-style starter home that packed many of the middle-class neighborhoods on Long Island. But my mother kept it filled with bright colors and paintings, so it always felt bigger than most of my friends’ homes for some reason. The best thing that came out of my grandfather leaving me the inheritance was that I was able to pay it off for her a few years ago.
“Wow. I love this place.” Gia looked around wide-eyed.
“I’m a bit of a wannabe decorator. I change the colors and move the furniture around all the time. When Heathcliff was little, he’d leave for school in the morning and the walls would be tan and couches red and he’d come home and we’d have blue walls and I’d have a staple gun out reupholstering the couches.”
Gia smirked at me. “Heathcliff. That sounds so funny to me, even though I know it’s his name.”
“Some of my family call him, Heath. But that never felt right to me.”
“Wasn’t he named after someone?”
Mom nodded. “My father. He was a good man. But Heathcliff never got the chance to meet him. He died when I was pregnant.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. He actually reminds me a lot of my dad. Tough guy, a little rough around the edges, but fiercely loyal and protective.”
Gia smiled. “I’ve definitely noticed the protective side.”
“I bet you have. Come on, let me show you my studio before Jeff gets here to take us to his gallery.”
“You two go ahead,” I said. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. I’m gonna go out back for a quick smoke.”
The two women turned to me and frowned in unison.
“I wish you’d give that up, sweetheart,” Mom said.
“Me, too,” Gia tacked on.
I looked between the two of them and growled. “Just what I need. Two of you up my ass.”
Jeff was nothing like I expected.
He looked more like a grandfather than someone my mother should be dating. Although, I suppose, technically, my mother is old enough to be a grandmother, too. I just never saw her as old because she didn’t act it and looked so young.
Jeff had gray hair, tanned skin with deep-set wrinkles, and had on a pair of loafers. I’d never even known she dated, much less got a look at a guy she spent time with, yet I expected him to look more like a rocker than a guy who sits in a damn rocker.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Gia walked up next to me as I pretended to study a painting in Jeff’s gallery. It looked like a bunch of ink splats to me, but the price tag was seven grand.
I pointed to the splat. “Would you pay seven grand for that?”
She chuckled. “I don’t have seven grand in my bank account. But if I did, I wouldn’t be wasting it on that.”
“What would you be spending it on?”
“September.”
“September?”
She sighed. “Yeah. The house we rent is twenty thousand a month in the summer months, but drops to a fraction of that in September. I just realized I only have six weeks left out there.” Our eyes caught. “I’m not ready for it to be over yet.”
Yeah. She wouldn’t be leaving if I had anything to do with it. I covered my nut for that rental with the spring and summer income. But it was too soon to ask her to stay and tell her I’d foot the bill.
She bumped her shoulder to me. “So…what do you think of your mom’s boyfriend?”
“I think he’s old as fuck.”
She laughed. “Melody said he’s only four years older than her.”
“He looks forty older.”
“Who cares? He seems like a nice guy, and they look happy together.”
I glanced over to the other side of the gallery. Jeff and my mother stood in front of a painting and he was telling her something while pointing at the art. Her head bent back in laughter, and my heart squeezed. “Yeah, they do look happy.”
“You know…” Gia said, “…people might look at us and think we make an odd couple, too. You’re all tatted and have that dark and dangerous thing going on. I look like a plain Jane standing next to you.”
My eyes raked up and down her. “You’re definitely no plain Jane. Maybe a sexy librarian guys fantasize about bending over in between the stacks, but no plain Jane, sweetheart.”
She leaned to me. “I wouldn’t mind if you bent me over in the stacks. In fact, I think that might be kinda hot.”
My cock twitched. Down boy.
“Oh yeah? How about the bathroom of an art gallery while my mother and her boyfriend are in the next room? Nothing says getting to know your son’s girlfriend like listening to her moan while your son rams his cock into her.”
Gia jabbed my ribs with her elbow. “Crass.”
“You love it. I bet your panties are wet.”
She surprised me by leaning up and kissing my cheek before whispering in my ear, “They are wet actually. But it’s not from hearing you say that you want to ram anything. They’re soaked from hearing you refer to me as your girlfriend without any hesitation. Total turn on.”
I wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her flush against me. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded with an ear-to-ear smile.
“Come on, girlfriend. Let’s get this show on the road and have dinner with my mom and grandpa so I can get you back home and get to second base after our second date.”
She arched a brow. “Second base? What the hell is second base if you think going down on me is first?”
“How’s the book coming along, Gia?” my mom asked over dinner.
“It’s moving along a little better now. Each day the words are coming a little faster, and the characters are really taking on more of their personalities.”
“That’s great. I often find it hardest to start a painting, but once I get going, I get into a groove and finish pretty fast.”
“I hope that’s the case for me. I have a looming deadline.”
Mom pointed to me. “My son, on the other hand, can start a painting faster than anyone I’ve ever met. Yet he never finishes any of them.”
Gia’s head whipped to me. “You paint?”
I shrugged. “I used to. But haven’t painted in years. Found I was better at finishing a piece on a person’s skin than I was on canvas though.”
“I don’t know why I never put two and two together. Your mom is an artist and you used to do tattoos. Of course you must be a talented painter. Do you have any of your old artwork?”
“In a closet somewhere.”
“I’d love to see them.”
Mom looked between us. “Umm. Rush’s art is a little different than mine.”
“How so?”
I glanced over at Mom. “I don’t paint landscapes.”
“Well. Now you have me curious.”
“Jeff paints as well,” Mom said.
“Not much anymore,” Jeff added. “I bought the gallery fifteen years ago as my retirement from painting. But every once in a while, I still get inspired and sit down in front of the old canvas. Though these days, I’m a bit rusty.”
“Jeff’s being modest.” Mom gushed. Something I only ever saw her do when she spoke about me. “He’s an amazing painter. One of his paintings was on exhibit at the gallery today.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“It was called Ink Splatter.”
My eyes jumped to Gia’s, and we both lifted our drinks to our mouths in an attempt to hide our smirks.
After dinner and coffee, which was a fuck of a lot less painful to share with the guy my mother is dating than I thought it would be, we headed out to the parking lot. Mom and Gia spent a few minutes talking, and Mom promised she would come out for a long weekend before the end of the summer.
Jeff looked me in the eye and gave a firm handshake. “Your mother is a special woman. Your opinion means the world to her. I’d like to get to know you better. Maybe I could come out for a round of golf one weekend.”
“Sure. I’m not that great at golf though. I basically whack the ball as far as I can to try and reach the longest distance.”
Jeff smiled. “Good. I suck at it, too. Driving range for an hour, longest drive doesn’t have to pay for the beers afterward?”
“Now you’re talking.” Maybe Grandpa wasn’t so bad after all.
The ride home felt like it took forever because I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Gia alone. I still didn’t think we should seal the deal, but there was no fucking way we were calling it a night without fooling around at least.
I pulled off the expressway and into our neighborhood. “You need anything from your place?”
Her lips slid into an adorable smirk. “That’s a bit presumptuous of you, isn’t it? You’re assuming I’m coming home with you and staying the night?”
“You bet your ass I am. I’ve been a perfect gentleman all night. That shit stays at the door when we get to my house. I’m going to do filthy things to your body, and you’re gonna love it.”
She swallowed. “Jesus, Rush.”
“I prefer to be called God, as in Oh God. Oh God.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
“True. But do you need anything from your house because I need to make a left at the light if you do.”
“No. I’m good.”
I side glanced at her. “No pills or anything?”
“Pills?” She was confused what I meant at first, but then it hit her. “Oh! No. I’m not on the pill anymore. I stopped taking them over a year ago since I wasn’t…you know, active anymore. But I guess I should get back on them.”
Another reason to take things slow. The last thing I needed was to fuck this girl’s life up just as she’s getting started by knocking her up. And I was pretty certain that when I finally got inside of her, I was gonna shoot such a big load that I’d fill up a condom and that shit would spill over into her.
“If you don’t mind taking them, it would be safer that way.”
“No, I don’t mind. Plus, then we can…”
“Fuck bareback?”
She blushed. “I was gonna say make love without having to stop and put on a condom. But yeah.”
My cock swelled at the thought of being inside her bare. I stepped on the gas to get the rest of the way home and practically ran us to the front door. Tossing my keys on the table inside, I said, “Make yourself comfortable. I need to take a quick shower.”
She grabbed my hand before I could run off. “Want company?”
I groaned. “You’re killing me.”