away, but now I could feel his heart beating, how fast it pounded, how aroused he’d become bringing me pleasure. That was a pretty great trait in a man. It made me think of some of the L.A. boys I’d been with, the way I’d catch them watching themselves in the mirror while they were supposedly making love to me. Hard to make love to someone else when what you loved most was your own image.
“Are you all right?” he murmured into my ear in the darkness of his truck. So solicitous to my needs. I had a long, long list of needs I’d like to share with him. But somehow I felt like I wouldn’t even have to, he’d discover them, draw them out, fulfilling needs even I didn’t know I had.
But, wait, what was happening? Was I sitting there mostly naked in the lap of a stranger pulled over on the side of a woodland road in the middle of nowhere?
“Where are we?” I asked, finally managing to push away from him. It felt like leaving the hearth of a roaring fire to head into the barren cold. But that was melodramatic, and I didn’t do melodrama. I did what needed to be done. I found my panties.
Torn clean in half. I held up the scrap of lace that used to be my underwear.
“I should say I’m sorry about that.” He spoke in such a deep, rumbling voice, just the sound of it made me breathless. “But I’m not sorry.” I had to close my eyes for a second. He wasn’t sorry that he’d been so wild he’d ripped my panties right off of me, torn them in two in his demanding need to get to me. It nearly made me swoon. But I’d done enough swooning for one night. Now, I needed to get on my jeans.
Finding them by my feet, I turned them right side out, blushing at the evidence of my own eagerness. I must have set a record for getting out of those jeans. They were tight, too, and I didn’t exactly have a lot of room in the cab of this truck. But motivation could work wonders. It took about three times as long to work myself back into them. I wasn’t as excited about this flip side.
He watched me, then handed me my shirt. Such a gentleman. Only he wasn’t a gentleman. What we’d done didn’t make itself into any etiquette book anywhere. It didn’t make its way into any Fame! location scouting handbooks, either.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have done that with him, let him touch me like that. I was supposed to spend at least the next few weeks in this town checking out the setting, making inroads with local power brokers, scouting for talent and possibly paving the way to film a show there. And now I’d let the local hottie finger-fuck me in his truck. Holy hell. Word would probably be all around town by tomorrow morning. So much for maintaining a relatively low-profile while I cased out the situation. I might as well hang a neon sign around my neck “Slutty L.A. Chick.” She’ll let any mountain man she meets at a bar get her off!
“I should go.” I put my hand on the door.
“Let me get you closer.” He started the engine and pulled us up 50 feet. Then he got out, crunched around and opened my door for me. He wasn’t asking me to stay. He wasn’t even asking for my number. But he was opening the door for me and in my post-orgasmic endorphin-flooded brain that felt nice. I needed to get a grip, which I did on him as I exited the cab of the truck and held onto his giant arm as we walked up to the front door.
Gary was home. He had the key to my condo waiting for me. And if he was surprised that I’d gotten an escort from Heath, he didn’t show it.
“Let me give you a lift over to the condo,” he offered, shrugging into his jacket. I did notice that my parka far outsized anything I’d seen a local wearing. But I was a lot colder than them. My L.A. blood ran thin.
“I’ve got some luggage.” I gestured toward Heath’s truck.
“I’ll follow you guys.” Hands dug into his jacket pockets, Heath turned back to his truck. Without me. I watched his back for a second, wishing momentarily that I was with him heading back to his beat-up pickup. But I shook that off. This was nothing more than temporary insanity. Maybe I’d caught a local fever from a mosquito bite. Or there’d been something in that hard cider, some pheromones. Only I’d been wild for him since the second I saw him.
“This way.” Gary cleared his throat, politely reminding me that we were standing outside in the snow late at night. I followed him to his truck and we drove all of two minutes to a nondescript two-story building. I had no idea how our network’s travel people had found the place. I was used to being put up in chic boutique hotels, the hottest spots to see and be seen. Maybe this was Watson, Vermont’s equivalent.
The whole transaction was over in five minutes. Gary opened the door and showed me around a tidy little place that at least looked recently updated. Heath brought my bags up and into the entryway. My luggage was so heavy it had made the people at United grimace and charge me extra weight fees. Heath carried them like they were postage stamps. Both men said goodnight at the same time, and I thanked them both. The only difference was one of them had given me a mind-numbingly intense orgasm a few minutes earlier. Thanks for that.
“Good meeting you, Violet.” Heath reached out and took my hand in his. I guess it was just a hand shake, but at the feel of my hand enveloped in his warm, rough palm, the broad manliness of it, I felt a tingle run down my spine all over again. His eyes were so dark and intense. There seemed to be so much behind that gaze. I couldn’t help but wonder about him, who he was, what was his story.
But that would have to unfold for the viewers of the reality series I was pushing. Because tonight Heath turned and left, no digits in his cell phone, no offer to show me around town tomorrow. Like what we’d just done in the cab of his truck was no big deal, already forgotten.
Only it hadn’t felt like that. It had felt like so much more, like he’d been as caught up as me, as overwhelmed and bewildered at our connection. The way he’d buried his face in my hair and breathed me in. The way he’d whispered my name, as if discovering a rare treasure.
It gave me a lot to think about. Good thing I had four large suitcases filled with stuff that needed to be unpacked. It would keep me busy and hopefully provide enough distraction that eventually I’d fall asleep.
§
The next day I didn’t wake up until after noon. I was still on California time. The skies were dreary and dark and the curtains were drawn. Plus, I’d been through a lot the night before. The harrowing drive. The blistering orgasm. These things required sleep the next day.
Yawning, stretching like a cat, I took a moment before getting out of bed. I loved going out on location, but I hadn’t done it too often. Most of the shows I’d worked on were filmed either in L.A. or NYC and I felt like both cities were home. But traveling somewhere new, it took you out of your daily routine. You could sleep in, explore, try some new food you’d never had before, step outside of yourself.
I liked going to farmer’s markets in new places. Not so much because I liked to cook—cooking was on the long list of things I’d never had time to attempt but had the desire to try one day—but because it was such great people-watching. You learned a lot about a place from the people who came to farmer’s markets. Of course, there would be some crunchy granola types in Birkenstocks and dreadlocks. There would always be hipsters, and moms with kids in one of two modes—eager or whining. And then there’d be the older, more dedicated foodies scrutinizing their eggplants as if selecting a diamond. I could flit around, choosing some fruit and a locally brewed organic coffee, and soak in the local culture to my heart’s content.
Watson supposedly had a thriving farmer’s market. It opened in May. With any luck, we’d be up and filming by then, capturing the local action just as the birds and bees got busy.
Speaking of. I felt my face flush and I brought my hands to my warm cheeks. What had happened last night? I didn’t know what I felt most shocked about. There was a long list of shocking things vying for my attention. First, there was the fact that I’d climbed into a rusty old pickup truck with a random, strange mountain guy. Bad idea number one. Then, how about the fact that I’d climbed onto his lap and basically tried to hump him through his clothes like a wild maniac in he
at? And then there was the big O.
What an orgasm. Mmm. I felt all warm and tingly at the memory and I couldn’t help it, I knew I should feel scandalized and appalled at myself, but wasn’t an orgasm like that a gift? In my experience—and I had had some experience—those kinds of orgasms didn’t happen every day. They might not ever happen at all to some pour souls. But last night I’d had one, the toe-curling, mind-evacuating, full-throttle kind of orgasm you read about in books, the kind that made you whimper and pant until you got what you wanted and then you screamed, your head thrown back, your mouth open in complete ecstasy.
That kind of an orgasm.
With a deep exhale, trying to dispel my thoughts, I rolled to the side and grabbed my phone. I read a text from Sam letting me know he would be getting on the road once he nursed his hangover for another hour. A slew of emails from work. An email from my mom, hoping I’d arrived safely and asking me to call her today to let her know.
Mom. Sundays were busy days for her. She owned and operated her own hair salon. I’d grown up surrounded by the hustle and bustle of hair driers and gossip, the rhythm and promise of beauty in a bottle. And with my mom, she really delivered. She knew how to work wonders, making fairy magic happen for weddings and prom nights and then every day magic for little old ladies coming in to chat and get their hair fluffed just so. I loved all of it, from the dull, dreary entrances to the smiling farewells as they exited the salon with a spring in their step and a twinkle in their eye.
I kept waiting to have that feeling from my work. I was an assistant producer, so shouldn’t I feel as if I’d produced something? Done something tangible? Created something that made people’s lives better even for a moment?
So far, I mostly felt like I was an extra in the movie The Devil Wears Prada, working in an office where skinny bitches—male and female—did their best to claw each other’s eyes out. And most of the shows we produced were a lot like a bikini mud wrestling contest, a whole lot of bad behavior with the occasional boob flash.