Page 6 of Prince of Storms
Well, not small. Axel had never been small, and now, he was growing like a weed. Which, considering how tiny Ally was, couldn’t have been the most comfortable of births. She said it had been fine, but I was sure the epidural had helped.
“Elaborate, please? For the uneducated among us.”
“Cause, Al, there I am, sitting in the bleachers, trying to get this car for my dad, to honor my dead mother, and the only thing I can think about, the only thought in my mind as I stare down at him, is how good he looked in that suit. Which I continued to do when I approached him and stared at his ass the entire time!”
“Just his ass?” Ally cackled with laughter.
I glared at her. “I’m serious!”
She sobered far quicker than I expected, which immediately put me on the defensive.
“So am I,” she said as she leaned forward, looking at me with concern in her blue-green eyes. “Mia, you know I love you, right?”
“Yes,” I said warily. “Why?”
“Because,” she said, shaking her head. “Look, I’ve been holding off saying this because I felt like I didn’t really know what you were going through and maybe it wasn’t my place. I can’t imagine what it’s been like losing your mother, especially the way you did. I just can’t. So maybe I’m being too harsh, and in which case, you can tell me to fuck right off, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, eyebrows coming down in a major frown.
“But it’s beenover a year,” she said.
“Fourteen months,” I said automatically.
“Exactly. Fourteen months. And in those fourteen months, you’ve all but shut your life down. All you do is go to work, sleep, and think about getting that car for your dad. That’s it. I see youwayless frequently than I did before, and I’m your best friend. I’ve had ababyin the meantime, and I see less of you than I do this,” she added, pointing at her wine glass. “You shut out your friends, and good grief, you haven’t gone on asingledate in that time.”
I looked away.
“Seriously, I think this is the first guy you’ve ever said anything about in that time. That you’ve shownanysemblance of interest in. Sexual or otherwise.”
I mulled her words over as she fell silent, letting me think.
“You’re probably right,” I said quietly. “At least, no guy that I’ve thought about this strongly.”
I declined to address the rest of her comment. She was right. Ihadpushed people out, but damn it, it was for a good reason. I’d lost my mother. At some point, I would lose my father, too. I knew that. I wasn’t an idiot. But the idea of someone else being torn away from me?
I shook my head to hide the thoughts.
“You mean made you horny,” Ally said in her blunt way. “No guy has even remotely turned you on until him?”
Shrugging, I nodded. “Yeah. But, Ally, we weresoclose. Only twelve grand more, and we could have had it. Now, who knows when the next one will come up for auction.”
“You go to an auction every other month with one,” she pointed out. “It won’t be that long.”
“I guess. But we were close, and we blew it.”
Ally shook her head, smiling. “Well, maybe if you’d offered to blowhim, you’d have the car.”
“Ew,” I said automatically. Not at the idea of sucking Mr. Suit’s hard cock. I’d already thought of that several times without provocation—among other things that I’d thought about him. “I’m not trading my body for money. All the power to women who want to do that or have an OnlyFans or whatever is popular these days, but I’d be way too scared of getting recognized. Not to mention, again, sex for money?”
Ally smiled. She was mostly teasing me. “What about sex for, oh, I don’t know,sex, then, Mia? ‘Cause, trust me, you need to get laid. Bad. At this point, the next guy who sleeps with you had better be Indiana freaking Jones because he’s gonna have to hack through a ton of overgrowth and cobwebs!”
We laughed. I didn’t tell her that there weren’t any cobwebs up there. Not after how I’d pleasured myself the night before to images of Mr. Suit … without his suit. Or without anything, for that matter. Just his hand on his cock, stroking it for me while he stared at me with his odd gray eyes. That had been enough. Even now, my cheeks warmed at the deliciously depraved memory.
“Regardless of what it is, Mia, you need to stop feeling guilty for, you know, having emotions. You’re alive and living, and you can’t shut that down. Even if you’re trying to. You can’t. You need to open back up to the world. To me.Please.”
“I’ll try,” I said softly, not sure if I truly would or not. “But that’s not what I was talking about.”
“I know,” she said with a shrug. “I was just trying to distract you from the fact that you didn’t get the car. I know you will. Soon. You’ll find one, and your dad will be ecstatic. By the time the next one comes up, you’ll have the money. I can feel it. I mean, shit, you’ve certainly been working yourself to the bone enough to get it!”
