Chapter Three
Cheryl sits in a half-circle booth at the back of Dan Tana’s. The lights are dim and the crowd sparkles with the glittering old money of Los Angeles. Her beauty strikes me. She’s a breathtaking woman made even more beautiful by the way she carries her beauty. Strong. Aware. Powerful. She can be kind and loving, and with a southern gentility of a steel magnolia. Not a shred of weakness inhabits her existence.
There is nothing odd about the two of us meeting for dinner other than we’ve never been in public together before tonight. I’ve licked every inch of her skin, sucked on her sugar-sweet nipples, and caressed her clit, and yet we’ve never had a meal in a public place before this moment. I’m no long Wonderfuck for her. Now I’m Jake.
I approach the table and she tilts her head up toward me. While her lips smile, her blue eyes hold ice. Our last parting wasn’t kind. I lean down and she presses her lips to my cheek. Chanel #5 whispers in the air.
“Jake,” she purrs.
Her Southern accent embraces me like a warm stroke across the thigh. I wait for the jolt to my cock that comes with Cheryl’s nearness. All the memories of her naked and us fucking, plow through my mind and yet, there is nothing. Not one hint of movement from my dick.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I sit beside Cheryl. No physical reaction to this woman means I am hung up on Tara. So hung up that the swell of Cheryl’s breast that peeks out from the top of her silk shirt does nothing for me. She’s been the most consistent sex in my life since Susie. My first Wonderfuck and my cock doesn’t even twitch.
Fuck.
“I’ve missed you.”
Beneath the table she rests her hand on my thigh.
I wish my cock had missed her too.
“I see you’re still wearing my present. Guess that’s a good sign.”
I glance at my wrist where the watch she gave me, that is well north what any American family makes in two years, rests.
The server pours our wine and then quietly disappears into the background. The noises around us fade, and we are two people very much alone, discussing things that we never thought we’d discuss.
“Why here?”
“Well darlin’ there’s nothing to hide now anymore is there? I’m one of the wealthiest women in Los Angeles and you’re one of the most prolific VC men, so I don’t think there’s any reason at all that people would be suspicious of us dining together. Makes perfect sense.”
Her gaze softens. The ice in her eyes turns to the serenity of sky.
“I missed you,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve missed us.”
I know her words are true and I wish I could say the same words and mean them. I didn’t miss her, not when I was with Tara and I believed there was a future between us. Then, I didn’t miss anyone or anything but Tara. Even Susie had lost her grip on my throat. Not now. Now I can’t have either Susie or Tara, and I don’t want any other woman.
Like she can read my mind, Cheryl’s gaze sharpens. “Please tell me you’re not still seeing her? Not after what she did?”
Cheryl is correct. What kind of sadist would continue to see a woman who betrayed him the way Tara betrayed me? Maybe the same type of asshole who would remain engaged to a woman with a sex addiction she can’t kick? So very fucking twisted and fucked up. My psyche is beyond damaged.
My silence tells my story, and Cheryl leans back into the booth.
“But why, sugar?” The remnants of her Southern accent hang in the air. “What good can come of seeing this woman? She betrayed your trust.”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. “I’m not sure I want to see her anymore, but I may not have a choice.”
“I’m not buying what you’re selling. We all have choices.”
Cheryl’s hand strokes my thigh beneath the table. She strokes up and I wish for my cock to react, because then, yeah, then, I’d have a choice.
Nada.
“Darlin’ you give everything you have where women are concerned, except your heart. That is like steel.” Her hand drifts higher up my leg. “Except for that Susie of yours, I don’t think you’ll ever fall in love.”
She’s reached the front of my pants. Her hand drifts along my trousers. Her eyebrow lifts. She’s not feeling what she expects to feel and neither am I. No strong, hard cock. No man who can Wonderfuck his cares away. No guy who could take Cheryl anywhere, anytime, and make her scream.
Cheryl’s hand remains in the spot where my limp dick has replaced my hard cock. Her facial expression doesn’t change, but her gaze tells a different story.
“I think I found my answer.”
Sympathy. I see sympathy in her eyes. Fuck that. There’s nothing worse than sympathy from a woman when your cock won’t get hard.
I shift away from Cheryl’s touch.
Heat burns a hole through my heart. Men are pretty fucking ego-driven where our dicks are concerned, and the idea that a woman I’ve pleasured hundreds of times has discovered that I can’t get hard – when not long ago a glance at Cheryl could drive me to stone – is a blow I can barely fucking take. But it’s true. This is the fact. The reality is that my dick is soft and the only woman who gets me off right now is the very one who betrayed me.
How fucked up am I?
“She’s the only one right now, isn’t she?”
My face doesn’t move a muscle, not a slip of emotion, but Cheryl’s known me too long not to read the response in my eyes. She realizes the fucking truth, that I am unfuckable, unless I am fucking the woman that I’m pissed at. The woman who betrayed me. The woman my heart and body wants but that my mind tells me is the worst decision I could possibly make.
“I always did enjoy a challenge.”
My stomach sours. Not only does my dick fail to get hard for this woman but the idea of her trying, and me failing, makes me want to puke.
“We didn’t come to this restaurant to fuck.”
“Why the hell not?” she asks.
We could. Cheryl would let me try to take her in this booth or at the very least press my finger to her clit and get her off, right here, right now. I grasp her hand and pull my fingertips along her thigh to the edge of her skirt. Yes, she’d love it if I slipped my fingertip beneath her panties. I tease the edge of the cloth with my finger.
She gasps. A slight intake of breath.
Oh yeah, she loves this. I stare into her eyes and it’s as though she’s daring me, seeing if I’ll actually do what I’m threatening. She wants me to push her to orgasm right here, right now, in this place. My finger trails along the soft skin and she slides her legs open. Hot wet heat is a millimeter away. I could make her come. I could press my fingertips against her clit and rub until she orgasms. I pull my fingers back from Cheryl’s sex.
I stop.
Why? Who the fuck knows….because the desire is absent. I could get her off, right here in the circle booth at Dan Tana’s but I don’t want to. Instead, I want the one person I shouldn’t want. I want Tara.
“I think you’re making a big mistake.”
Cheryl’s voice is raspy, with hints of unfulfilled desire. She licks her bottom lip and takes a sip of wine. “That reporter of yours will only cause you a world of pain.”
Cheryl’s right. I know I’m making a huge mistake. I’m so fucking twisted and masochistic that the pain Tara can cause me is the only thing I want.
“She reached out to me.”
My heart careens through my chest.
Cheryl continues. “How do you think she got all those quotes?”
“I didn’t really think about it.”
“Didn’t think about it or didn’t want to?”
“Didn’t want to.”
“You’re hung up on this woman and you’re ignoring her deceit. Why does that sound familiar?”
Heat cascades through my chest and I want to direct my rage at Cheryl, but I know the place my anger should be directed is Tara. Cheryl is the messenger of a story I want to pretend is untrue.
“She doesn’t know about you. I’ve never mentioned you or anyone else.”
“Well she found me. I don’t how, but she did. I didn’t respond to her request, but she’s a reporter, she’ll dig and dig and dig until she gets all the answers she wants.”
Was Tara still digging? Was that what last night was? Not an attempt at forgiveness and starting over but another chance at deceit, a new story, a new angle, maybe even a—
“You know she’s got a book contract.”
Cheryl speaks my very fears.
“Next, she’ll line up for the morning talk-circuit for this little article she’s written. Seems like you’ve given her career quite the boost.”
My guts twist.
“So darlin’, I just wanted you to be aware of what you’ve gotten yourself into with this one. That’s why we’re meeting in public. Because what kind of woman would actually meet the Wonderfuck in public if she was actually sleeping with him?”
She sips her wine and her gaze caresses the diners in the restaurant. “My way of throwin’ off the scent.” Cheryl looks at me. “But darlin’, you’ve got yourself a leak somewhere or maybe she’s simply been riflin’ through your things. Whatever it is, I don’t know exactly what she knows or what she plans to do with what she knows, and that makes me pretty uncomfortable.”
As it should.
“Any ideas about what she’s up to now?”
I don’t know what the fuck Tara is doing, and it’s pretty obvious to me that I never did.
“I don’t keep your number on my regular phone, or I didn’t before you texted to set up tonight. I don’t put names in my other phone. All that phone does is take texts and calls and—”
I stop. My heart burns in my chest. Fuck. Did she… Could she have…What the fuck..?
“Right.” Cheryl’s eyes register that I’ve discovered another fact that damns Tara even further. “I thought you should know what type of person you’re dealin’ with. It wasn’t like she just sent out a notice on Craigslist asking for women who had visited Wonderfuck. She contacted us. Individually. Using our personal phone numbers.”
I close my eyes. Tara didn’t lie to me, she simply hadn’t told me the truth either. A lie by omission. I’m familiar with those…. Susie. Even last night. The fucking, and the emotion.
“I’m sorry darlin’.” Cheryl squeezes my bicep. “A lot of people aren’t what they seem, and I’m afraid this Tara is most definitely all about herself.”
And I know that Cheryl is right.