Nothing Between Us (37 page)

She gave him another quick kiss. “I love you, too. Now go out there and show them how amazing you are.”

—

Georgia was buzzing with the energy from the night as the three of them made their way up the driveway. The neighborhood was quiet and still around them, making it feel like they were the only ones in the universe right now. Just them and the stars.

Keats came up behind her, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around. “I feel like I could run a marathon right now.”

She laughed, trying to keep her voice down and failing. “I know what you mean.”

Keats had killed it up there onstage. The guy who’d been nervous and stiff during practice had disappeared and the performer had emerged. He’d had the club in the palm of his hand—especially the female segment of the audience. And the record executive had been enthusiastic after the performance, wanting to talk to Keats more and even interested in some duet material from the songs Colby and Keats had performed together. Nothing was inked yet, but it was a great start.

Keats set her down, and Colby wrapped his arms around her from behind, moving them into the shadow by the garage. “I don’t feel like running a marathon, but I can think of some other things we could do to burn off energy.”

“Charades?” Keats suggested.

Georgia turned her head. “Monopoly?”

Colby grunted and his hand slipped under the hem of her shirt, tracking over her belly. “Smartasses.”

Keats’s eyes followed the movement of Colby’s hand, and his teasing expression melted into something more base. “Well, there are some other games we could play.”

“Agreed,” Colby said next to her ear as he let his hand dip just a little below her waistband. “I’m thinking that How Many Times Can We Make Our Girl Lose Her Mind in One Night could work.”

Keats closed the space between them and pressed his body up against hers, his hips bumping the hand Colby had against her. “Best game ever.”

Colby kissed the back of her neck, and Keats leaned forward to take her mouth. She closed her eyes, falling into the sensations of being caught between the two of them. They could overwhelm her in an instant and she loved it, loved losing herself to the moments where it was all roaming hands and warm bodies and whispered words.

Both men were growing hard against her as they stood there, making out in the dark corner of the driveway. Her insides turned molten. She wasn’t sure she could ever get enough of these two. Every time they touched her, it was like her body was starved all over again, like she’d never been touched before.

Colby kissed the spot behind her ear, sending goose bumps down her neck. “Maybe we should take this inside.”

“Good idea,” Keats said, pulling back and smiling. “Wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbors. They may want to join in.”

Georgia laughed, but when they took her by the hand, and she turned to look back at the house that had been her prison for so long, she saw a shaft of light fall over a face in the window. Her old hiding place.

Her breath caught for a moment, but then their new neighbor, an older lady who’d moved into the house after Georgia had vacated it, lifted her hand in a little wave as if to say, “Don’t mind me. Go on and do what makes you happy.”

And Georgia couldn’t help but smile and give a wave back.

Because she was.

Finally, she was the scene on the other side of the glass. She was one of the happy ones.

She was theirs.

Read on for a sneak peek at the next Loving on the Edge novel

C
ALL ON
M
E

Coming July 2015 from Berkley Books!

“Are you touching yourself?” The voice in Oakley’s ear sounded labored and overeager—like a Saint Bernard attempting phone sex. He was probably drooling, too. Lovely.

“Yes, you make me so hot”—she quickly checked the sticky note she’d put on the kitchen island—“Stefan.”

Stefan. Literature professor. Single. Six foot five.

That was the info he’d given her. Which probably meant:
Steve, unemployed, married, and five-six on a good day.

He groaned. “You’re so sexy.”

Sexy? Two points off for lack of originality, Mr. Lit Prof. Though even the suave guys tended to forget their vocabulary when they got to this point in the conversation. Oakley covered the mouthpiece on her headset and turned off the timer on the oven. If nothing else, she was impressed the guy had lasted through the full baking time.

“Thanks, sugar,” she said, letting her tone drop into a lower register.

“God, your voice is so fucking hot.”

That she heard a lot. A record company exec had once deemed her voice “smoky, X-rated perfection” when he’d heard her demo. At the time, she hadn’t considered how inappropriate it’d been for a grown man to tell a fifteen-year-old kid that. But her raspy voice had gotten her the gig then, and it’d gotten her this one now. Though, admittedly, the bar wasn’t set quite as high for this current one.

“I’m gonna give it to you so hard, Sasha,” Stefan ground out. “I can feel your hot mouth closing around me.”

Oakley donned oven mitts and leaned down to pull out the tray of brownies. The smell of chocolate and the heat of the oven hit her with full force. She inhaled deeply. “Mmm, that’s
so
good. I could just lick up every last bit.”

“Yeah,” he panted, the sound of his slick, pumping fist obscenely clear through the receiver. “That’s right. Show me how much you want it.”

There you go, Steve, you go on and get your money’s worth.
Oakley set the tray of brownies on a trivet and tugged off the mitts. Her stomach rumbled. She’d stayed up late enough that her body was looking for dinner number two. But these weren’t for her.

She glanced toward the darkened hallway and the stairs beyond. Well, maybe one little corner piece wouldn’t be missed. She cut a small square and dipped her fingers in to grab it. But as she lifted the brownie, her knuckles grazed the searing hot pan.

“Ah, shit!” she hissed, jerking her hand back.

“Oh, yeah, let me hear it,” Stefan said on a moan. “Come with me, baby.”

Oakley shook out her hand, sucking air through her teeth, and tried to keep the pain out of her voice. Her phone companion thought she was mid-orgasm. She threw in an
oh, oh, oh
and ran to the sink to plunge her fist into the dishwater she’d drawn to soak the mixing bowl.

Stefan made choked sounds as he reached his own release. In another world, maybe it could’ve been an erotic moment. She’d talked a guy into an orgasm. He was calling her name. But the name was fake and so was the talk. And though she held nothing against the guys who called—they helped her pay the bills—her libido had long ago crawled into a dark corner to die a peaceful death. Even if she imagined the guy on the other end of the line looked like Johnny Depp or Justin Timberlake or something, she couldn’t drum up one ounce of interest.

Stefan panted heavy, wet breaths right against her ear, resuming his resemblance to a Saint Bernard. Maybe she should offer him a “good boy” or a Milk-Bone.

“That was amazing,” she said, using her husky, after-sex voice as she soaked her hand in the water. “Thank you, Stefan.”

Panting. Panting. That was the only response.

Then a tight, high sound—whistling.

No.
Wheezing.

Uh-oh. “Stefan? Are you okay?”

Those squeaking breaths continued for a few seconds, then: “Yes . . . I’m . . . fine.”

He didn’t sound fine. “Stefan, if you’re having an asthma attack or chest pains or something, you need to call for help.”

“Can’t . . .” He gave a ragged cough. “My wife . . . can’t know . . . I’m down here this late. She’ll know I’m up . . .”

He coughed again.

Jesus Christ. Oakley shook the water off her hand. “What’s she going to think when she finds you dead in the basement? Hang up the phone and dial 911.”

“I—”

“Stu?” a sharp voice said in the background. “What are you doing down here?
Stu?
”

“Oh, shit,” Stefan/Stu said between wheezes.

The dial tone buzzed in Oakley’s ear a second later.

She pulled off the wireless headset and sagged against the fridge, exhaling a long breath. Okay. It would be all right. Stu’s wife might kill him when she found him with the phone to his ear and his underwear around his ankles, but at least the guy wouldn’t die of a heart attack on Oakley’s watch.

She could handle a lot of stuff—callers threw all kinds of bizarre shit at her—but she couldn’t be responsible for helping kill one. It was bad enough that she’d just contributed to strife in another marriage.

Gold star for her.

It shouldn’t bother her. The guys who called were grown men making a conscious decision to seek out paid phone sex. She was simply the tool of choice. Another night, they might download porn and watch a dirty movie instead. If she’d learned anything during her year of doing this job, it was that it wasn’t personal. She had a job to do. The callers needed a faceless someone to fill in for their fantasy that night. The relationship was purely transactional. And hell, she’d been used for free by enough men in her past. Now she was at least paid for it and not getting emotionally annihilated in the process. But, still, sometimes she felt like the drug dealer, giving addicts easy access to their vice.

She rolled her shoulders, trying to shrug off the stress of the call, and dug a tube of antibiotic ointment out of the junk drawer to slather on her burned knuckles. It was past two and she really needed to get to bed, but there was no way she’d be able to sleep after that burst of adrenaline from the call.

Plus, she’d never gotten her dessert. And right now, she could use a big honking piece of chocolate.

She went back to the brownies. They’d cooled enough by now, so she cut herself a bigger square than the original corner she’d planned and took a bite. She closed her eyes.
Yeah, that’s the stuff.

After pouring a big glass of milk, she brought that and the rest of the brownie to the table. She glanced at the walkie-talkie she’d placed on the table, the soft white noise relaxing her, and leaned back in the chair to enjoy the solitude. She was used to pulling the night shift by now, but usually she fell into bed after the last call, grasping for any shreds of sleep she could get before the alarm went off to start her real job. But it was nice to sit for a moment and simply be.

She polished off the last bit of brownie and milk and brought her glass to the sink. The exhaustion was settling in full force now. She braced her hands on the edge of the counter and eyed the soaking dishes. Her mother had always had the rule to never go to bed with a dirty sink—as if a bright, gleaming, empty sink was some sign of how together the household was. Maybe it was.

Oakley turned away from the dishes. They’d have to wait until tomorrow. She didn’t have it in her.

She put plastic wrap over the rest of the brownies and grabbed the walkie-talkie and her headset. She should be able to get at least four hours of sleep. But right as she flipped off the light, the walkie-talkie beeped.

“Mom?”

Oakley halted, startled by the sudden voice in the quiet. She pressed the button on the side of the device. “Yeah, baby?”

“What’s that smell?” Reagan asked, her voice groggy from sleep.

Oakley shook her head and smiled. She should’ve known the bionic nose would pick up that scent even in her sleep. “It’s just the brownies for your bake sale tomorrow.”

“It’s not my bake sale. It’s the school’s,” Reagan corrected.

“That’s what I meant.”

“But that’s not what you said.”

Oakley leaned against the wall in the hallway. This was an argument she’d never win. Reagan was into exactness. “I’m sorry I said it wrong the first time. Now go back to sleep, sweetheart. I don’t want you to be tired in the morning.”

“Did you put nuts or caramel in them?”

“Of course not. I know you’re a brownie purist.”

“Okay. Good,” Reagan said, and Oakley could almost hear her daughter nodding. “Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

Oakley pressed the walkie-talkie to her chest for a moment, warmth filling her. “Love you, too, Rae. Good night.”

Oakley headed to her bedroom, listening to the footfalls upstairs and the flush of the toilet as Reagan made a quick trip to the bathroom. She must’ve really had to go because Rae hated getting out of bed in the middle of the night. And she outright refused to come downstairs after dark because there weren’t enough places for night-lights.

Hence the walkie-talkies. Oakley had gotten tired of Reagan yelling from afar anytime she needed something at night. And leaving every light blazing through the house all evening wasn’t an option either. The electric bill was already high enough.

Bills.
No, she wouldn’t think about that now. Even though she could see the stack staring at her from her desk. The gas bill. Rent. The quarterly installment for Reagan’s private school and therapies. She couldn’t face that tonight. Plus, she knew the due dates by heart so she could hold on to her money until the very last minute without being late.

She closed her bedroom door and walked over to her computer to wake the screen. Her sign-in page for the service she used to get her calls was still up. It showed how many minutes she’d logged tonight. Not bad. But she was six minutes shy of hitting the bonus level where she got an extra fifty bucks for the night. Stu’s health scare had cost her more than stress.

She sighed and sagged into her desk chair. Fifty extra dollars could pay for that pair of lime green Chuck Taylors Reagan wanted for her birthday.

Oakley yawned and checked the box that indicated she was available to take a call. Her cell phone rang within seconds and she slipped on the headset again. “Hello, this is Sasha. Ready for a fantasy night?”

“So ready,” said the deep-voiced caller. There was male tittering in the background.

Great. A frat-boy call.

“What are you wearing, Sasha?”

Oakley looked down at her oversized T-shirt and yoga pants. “A sheer robe with nothing underneath.”

“Aw, yeah,” the dude said. “How big are your tits?”

Oakley put her head to her desk. Six minutes. She only needed to keep them on the phone for six more minutes.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

They hung up at two, laughing in the background as the phone went dead.

Their Truth or Dare game complete.

And she was short.

She lifted her head and checked the
Available
box again.

“Hello, this is Sasha . . .”