“Oh, it’s beautiful. You actually don’t touch it to play it. There’s an electrical signal between two antennae, and you move your hands between them to create a sound. It’s just the most haunting thing you ever heard.”
“You play it without touching it?”
“Yeah, you just move your hands inside it. Like a dance.”
“This, I have to see.”
When he tipped his head toward me, I thought, oh no. He wants me to play it for him. Never gonna happen. For some reason, the idea of this guy seeing me sing or play made me feel vulnerable, and I wasn’t in for that at all. “You can watch people play it on YouTube.”
“True. But I want to watch you do it.”
I didn’t know where we were going, so I didn’t know how much of a drive we were in for. I wanted to get off the subject of me before I told him something that gave him a hold over me. I had to remember he was my new boss’s friend, and I really liked working at the Stock.
“What do you do besides own hotels and pick up very attractive waitresses?”
“I own lots of things, and they all need attention.”
He pulled the car to the side of the road. We were on the twistiest part of Mulholland, the part that looked like a desolate park instead of the most expensive real estate in Los Angeles County. A short guardrail stood between the car and a nearly sheer drop down to the valley and its twinkling Saturday night lights.
“Let’s go take a look,” he said, pulling the emergency brake.
I got out, thankful for the opportunity to uncross my legs, and slammed the door behind me. I walked toward the edge overlooking the city. My heels kept hitting little rocky ditches, but I played it off. They were comfortable, but they weren’t hiking boots. I stood close to the guardrail, leaning against it with my knees. I felt him behind me, closing his door and jingling his keys. I’d been to places like that before. There were thousands of them all over the city, which was surrounded by hills and mountains. Way back when, before I’d even kissed Darren, I’d been up to a similar place to squirm around the back of Peter Dunbar’s Nissan. And after the prom, I’d come up to drink too much and make love to Darren behind a tree.
“Do you live up here?” I asked.
“I live in Griffith Park.” He stepped behind me. “Those bright lights are Universal City. To the right, that black part is the Hollywood reservoir.” I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. “Toluca Lake is to the left.” He put his hands on my neck, where every nerve ending in my body was now located, following his touch as he stroked me, like the little magnet shavings under plastic I’d played with as a kid. When the pen moved, the shavings moved, and I arched my neck to feel more of him. “The rest,” he said, “is hell on Earth. Not recommended.”
He kissed me at the base of my neck. His lips were full and soft. His tongue traced a line across my shoulder. I gasped. I had not a single word to say, even when I felt his erection against my back and his hands moved across my stomach, feeling me through my clothes. God, I hadn’t been touched like that in so long. When did I decide men were too much trouble? A year and a half since I shed Kevin like a too-warm coat? I couldn’t even say. Drazen’s lips were more than lips; they were the physical memory of myself before I shut out sex to pursue music.
I twisted, my lips searching for his, my mouth open for him as his was for me. We met there, tongues twisting together, his chest to my back, his hands moving up my shirt, teasing my nipples.
I moaned and turned to face him. He pushed me against the car. The hardness between his legs felt enormous on my thigh. He moved his hand down and pushed my legs open, gripping tight enough to press my jeans against my skin. He looked down at me, and the intensity of the lust in his eyes was nearly intimidating, but I was way past sense. Miles. The thought of saying, “No, stop, I need sleep so I’m fresh for rehearsals tomorrow,” didn’t even occur to me. He pushed his hips between my legs and kissed me again. I was hungry for him. A white hot ball of heat grew beneath my hips. We kept kissing and grinding, hands everywhere. I pinched his nipple through his shirt and he gasped, biting my neck. I hated my clothes. I hated every layer of fabric between myself and his cock. I wanted to feel skin sweating above mine, his dick rigid and hot, his hands at my breasts. I wanted those hard, dry thrusts to be real, slick, sliding inside me.
The siren blast split my ears. I almost choked on my own spit. Jonathan looked over at the police car and the tension in his neck was the last thing I saw before the light got too bright to see anything. I lowered my legs, and when he got off me, he held his hand out to help me off the hood.
“Good morning,” came a male voice from behind the driver’s side light. The passenger door opened, and a female cop got out.
“Good morning,” Jonathan and I answered like two kids greeting their third grade teacher. He wove his fingers in mine. The female cop shone her flashlight in my face. I flinched.
“You okay, miss?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you step away from the gentleman, please? Come toward me.”
I did, hands out so she knew I wasn’t reaching for anything. The cop pulled me out of earshot.
“Do you know this guy?” she asked, shining a little light into my pupils to see if I was on anything stronger than pheromones.
“Yes.”
“Are you here of your own free will?”
“Yes.”
“That was pretty hot.” She snapped her little light down. “Next time, get a room, okay?”
eleven
Things cooled on the way home. I kept my legs crossed and his hand stayed on the gear shifter. When I told Jonathan the lady cop said we should get a room, he laughed.
“If only she knew who she was talking about,” he said. After a few seconds, he stopped at a light and turned to me. “So, what’s up with you saying you’re not sleeping with me, then pushing up against my dick on the hood of my car?”
I was a little annoyed with the question, because he brought me there and he started kissing my neck, but I also couldn’t pretend I wasn’t just as responsible for the raw heat of the scene.
“I just…” I had to pause and think. The light changed, and when he turned his head back to the road, I felt like I could talk. “I have things I’m doing. I can’t be up all night fucking because my voice gets messed up. I can’t think about a man, any man, nothing personal, when I should be writing songs. Carving out enough nights for song writing, between gigs and working, is hard enough without making time for a boyfriend. So, I mean, I had to give up something in life, and it’s men.”
He nodded and thought about it. He rubbed his chin, which had a little bit of stubble. My neck remembered it very fondly. “I get it.”
“So, I’m sorry I led you on. That was careless.”
His laugh was loud and inappropriate, considering what I’d just said, but he didn’t seem embarrassed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You’re taking all my best lines.”
“Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”
“No problem. I enjoyed hearing it.”
I leaned back and watched the scenery change from the twisted forestation of Mulholland to the expanse of the 101. How did I end up in this car, at four in the morning, with a known womanizer? Yes, he was gorgeous and warm and knew all the right places and ways to touch me, but really? How stupid would I be? How many women had fallen for this crap, and I was going to be another one in line?
The wind made it hard to talk until he pulled off downtown. “What’s with you and sleeping around?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“All the women. You have a reputation.”