“What the hell were you thinking? Do you even know what’s on the third floor?” Brad asked her in the car.
“Tommy might have mentioned it … sorry, I got carried away, we were drinking and dancing, I might’ve said something about taking the tour upstairs … I thought I was going to film it.”
“The third floor is where they rent private rooms, Charlie, once you’re in there, you’re on your own, nobody is going to take the responsibility of what happens in those rooms except you … God! What if I didn’t get there in time?”
Charlie covered her face with both hands, it started to sink in. “Shit … you’re right, I’m sorry … it won’t happen again.”
“No … it won’t, ’cause I’m not going in there ever again … those days are over for me, and you … you should never go there alone, it’s not safe,” he scolded her.
“You’re right, I know, I’m sorry … okay? I wasn’t thinking straight,” it had just occurred to her how dangerous it was.
Brad clutched on the steering wheel, eyes on the road, his jaw tightened, “No … you weren’t thinking straight … I heard what you said to Alex … it’s your boyfriend, isn’t it? You mentioned a name … Amber Stewart? Is she sleeping with your boyfriend?”
Charlie sighed, she held her head and grunted, “I don’t know … she was naked in his apartment … she was on top of him but … they both said nothing happened, what was I supposed to believe? What would you believe?”
He was silent, his face without expression. “So … you thought you were going to sleep with random guys at The Silver Tongue because of that?”
She rubbed her face, “No … I didn’t know what I was doing, I wanted to get back at him … I just … I don’t know.”
Brad exhaled deeply, “Look … if there’s any consolation … I know Amber … she’s … bad news … if your boyfriend is messin’ around with her … it may not be entirely his fault … but if he is messin’ around with her, he’s probably not worth your time either.”
She turned to look at him, her head spun, all those drinks she chugged down at The Silver Tongue was slowly coming back up. “You know Amber Stewart?”
“Yeah … we go back a long way, before she worked for … Maxine …” his eyes gazed far away, maybe to the past where he remembered his younger days.
“She works for Maxine?”
“She signed up with Arch Agencies … to tell you the truth, I was wondering if you did the same … given the photo shoot you did for her, and your scholarship?”
“Tommy signed up with Arch … so I can go to Arch Film Institute, I got the internship thing as a bonus … I’m not supposed to be talking about this with anyone … but you weren’t supposed to see the pictures either,” the pictures were finally brought up again.
Brad chuckled, “Is that what my aunt told you? Look … Charlie … I love my aunt, but I know how she does her business … I’m not supposed to be telling you this either … be careful, okay? Don’t get yourself into something you can’t get out of … if she ever asks you to meet with her business associates or whatever … don’t do it … make excuses … don’t go into that.”
She furrowed her eyebrows, “Why? What would she want to do by doing that?” she was clueless.
“Just don’t … stay away from private meetings, okay? Stay in school, and stay away from private meetings,” he didn’t care to explain.
She paused for a moment, there were too many things going on in her head. “Can you pull up the car? I think I’m gonna throw up.”
Nearly half of her stomach’s content spilled out by the roadside. Brad leaned his back on his car, hung his face in one hand. What a night it was, babysitting his most brilliant student, the most beautiful one too.
“Are you done?” he asked after she laid back on the car seat.
She nodded.
“Can I take you home now?”
She nodded again.
“Can we keep this conversation between us? I don’t know if she has any sinister plan plotted out for you and your boyfriend, but knowing my aunt … there’s always something … just don’t get into her trap, okay? If anything, I think you and Tommy should start figuring out a way to get out of her contract.”
Charlie stared at him blankly, she didn’t have a clue on how to do that. And if she did, she didn’t know what to do without the contract. Tommy would lose his job, she would lose her ‘scholarship’, what then?
Brad took her hand, he looked at her with sympathy, “I can help you with school … but … think about it first, just be careful, don’t get trapped.”
When they arrived in front of her apartment building, she was all better, her nausea had gone out the door along with those tequila shots she took.
“You want me to walk you upstairs?” Brad offered.
“No … I’m okay … thanks for tonight … for everything,” she said.
He nodded, “I’ll see you in class then, see you Charlie,” and then he drove away.
**********
She was sobered a bit after the new light of information from Brad. Maybe Tommy wasn’t lying after all, maybe he did have something to tell her. She reached for her keys in her bag when she walked out of the elevator. She looked up to her door to find Tommy sitting on the floor. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time she saw him.
“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours,” he stood up to greet her.
“What are you doing here? I thought I told you not to come?” she put her keys in the door and opened it.
“Are you drunk? You’ve been drinking? Where were you?” he followed her inside.
“I was at The Silver Tongue for my project, it was Rock n’ Roll night … and yes, I had plenty of drinks … on the house,” she threw her bag on the kitchen counter and poured herself some water.
“Who were you with?” his ice blue eyes pierced into hers.
She thought for a moment as she sipped her water, “I was with Brad … my professor.” She knew how much Tommy hated it when she mentioned some guy’s name, especially when they were fighting. It stirred him differently.
He clenched his teeth, “School project? At The Silver Tongue? Well … that’s convenient … drinking with the professor? What else did you do there?”
She was smiling inside, “A lot of things … I almost went to the third floor,” she drank her water again.
It struck a nerve, he walked over to her, “Third floor? With your professor? Does he have some kind of death wish?”
“No … with some other guy … but Brad stopped us.”
He took a deep frustrated breath, a lot of thought ran into his mind and they were not good, “What are you trying to do? Make me jealous?”
“If you can do it with Amber … I can do it with some other guy.”
He banged his hand on the kitchen counter, “I didn’t do anything with Amber, Charlie! Nothing happened! Did he touch you? … Did you let some guy touch you, Charlie?” he was breathing faster.
“No … but I wanted him to,” she wanted to push his buttons.
“You’re lying … you’re just saying it to get on my nerves, you know I can’t stand it … did he fucking touch you, Charlie?”
She looked into his bright blue eyes and something melted, Tommy, her biggest weakness and her strength. But there was a naked girl sitting on top of him just the night before, perfect breasts, perfect skin, how could she erase that from her mind? She hated him for it, she slapped him.
“Did you get hard looking at her tits?”
“No,” he didn’t flinch as he stared at her, their nose almost touched, his hands on the counter, he was cornering her.
“Liar.”
“No … she was blackmailing me, it didn’t turn me on, not even a little … did he fucking touch you, Charlie?”
“I always wanted to know if another man can make me wet … like other women could turn you on … no, he didn’t touch me, but I wish he did … just out of curiosity, see if he could make me cum.”
“You didn’t mean that … take it back …” he hadn’t slept the whole day, but she was burning him alive.
“You better be telling me the truth, Tommy, ’cause I will fuck them … I will fuck them if you lie to me.”
“Nobody’s going to fuck you but me,” he grabbed the back of her head and kissed her violently, just the thought of her with another man pushed him to the edge. He ripped her shirt with one swift pull, all the buttons fell on the floor. He picked her up, sat her on the counter. She pulled the shirt off his back.
It only took one kiss from Tommy to get to her. His lips on hers, his tongue inside her mouth. She grabbed his face, not letting it go, she wanted to envelope him in her mouth. This was her man, no other woman should ever touch him.
His hands were pulling off her pants. She was biting his lips, pulling his hair. “Take it off,” she said. She lifted her arms and held onto the kitchen cabinet handle so he could pull off her pants and her panties along with it.
He didn’t waste any time to put his tongue inside her, ate her up, made her squirm in pleasure.
He lifted her up and brought her down to the kitchen floor. He pulled down his pants in a haste. There was no time to be angry at her for making him jealous, no time to explain to her what really happened the night before. He had to have her, right there and then.
She took off her bra, there was not a single thread covering her skin as she lay on the kitchen floor. Her legs wide opened, she pulled him by his neck and kissed his thick red lips. Their breaths were heavy, her passion for him turned him rock hard. She moaned as he entered her strong and hard. This was what she wanted, not some random guy at The Silver Tongue. She wanted Tommy’s arms pinning her down, his firm weight heavy on her stomach, his tongue inside her throat, her breasts inside his mouth and his thrusts.
His powerful thrusts that pushed her across the kitchen floor until her head bumped on a chair. She held on to the chair, he flipped her over, her back was raised with her knees on the floor, he grabbed her from behind and pushed in. He leaned forward to get close to her face, he put one hand around her neck and gently squeezed, while the other rubbed on her center. “You’re the only one I want to do this with, baby, I couldn’t stop thinking of fucking you … God you feel so good,” he said in her ear, and grazed his teeth on her shoulder.
She was dizzy from whatever left of what she drank, and she was high from his push and pull, his gentle squeeze around her neck and his steady finger rubbing her front. He pulled her hair to see her flushed face, her mouth gaped open, moaning in ecstasy, and she tightened around him when she came, and he came all over her. He came hard and fell on her side. They gasped for air in sweat and cum, the messiest sex they ever had.