Built Read online

  I slammed the sliding door, pleased that she’d followed me outside, despite the unintentional insult. “You think that’s funny? Calling me pretty? Calling me a boy?”

  “Baby boy, I’ve seen more in my thirty years than you can imagine.”

  “So I heard,” I said, smirking. I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned against the side of the van.

  “What exactly did you hear?” Her closed face and the arms she crossed over her lush chest told me that maybe I’d crossed some sort of invisible line.

  “That you like women?” I answered, almost embarrassed to even say it.

  “I like men too—all kinds.” She slowly moved closer, her hips swaying, her shoes slapping against the pavement. “That bother you?”

  “No,” I lied. I forced my breathing to remain even and steady as her hand rested on my belly before slowly sliding higher until it stopped at my left pec. Just over my heart. Could she feel it? Did she know the effect she had on me? My cock swelled, strangling slightly on my briefs and jeans.

  “I don’t believe you, D’Angelo.”

  “It’s D,” I corrected with a nod. No one but my parents called me D’Angelo (which rhymed with tangelo if you said it just right).

  “They give you a middle name, D?”

  My eyes focused on her full, pink mouth, I licked my parched lips and answered, “William.”

  “So how come you don’t go by Will?”

  I shrugged and watched her from behind my sunglasses, wondering why my name was so important. “Dunno.”

  “You think you can handle me…D?” she asked, switching gears. She gave my pec a squeeze and my dick responded.

  “Why don’t you go out with me Saturday night and we’ll find out?” I wanted to reach up under the edge of her shorts and see if she was as turned on as I was, but the white steel door that led into the back of the shop reminded me that any minute now my auntie could come out and check on me, check to see if I’d left, haggle over the huge-ass bill I’d dropped on her desk, whatever.

  If Aunt Glo—or worse, my mom—found out I was even thinking about messing around with Cherise, I’d be in deep shit. Really, really deep shit. It was trouble I didn’t need, but the kind of trouble I couldn’t resist.

  “What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done?” She was skeptical. Her hand drifted between the buttons of my work shirt, tickling my chest even through the wife-beater I wore underneath. “Gone down on a girl?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a snort.

  “That’s the freakiest thing you’ve done?” Her arched eyebrow left me feeling inadequate, and I didn’t like it.

  “I’ve never gotten any complaints,” I said defensively.

  “But did you like it?”

  “It was okay.” I didn’t hate it, just figured it was all part of the process.

  “You should love it. You should love everything you do to a woman.”

  The weight of her words settled low in my gut, and I stayed silent, unsure of how to respond. The early-afternoon sun beat down on us, making my skin slick with sweat and reminding me I had a schedule to keep. I dug for my keys, stalling while I searched for the right words that would get her to go out with me.

  “Would you fuck another woman for me?”

  “Yeah.” So maybe I was lying, but damned if I wasn’t willing to try. I’d never talked about sex like this with a woman. “So how does the whole bisexual thing work?”

  I winced at her howl of laugher.

  “However the hell I want it to, honey,” she said, letting her hand fall to her side. “You don’t want to play with me.”

  Oh, yes, I did. “Yeah, I do.”

  She shook her head, lips pursed.

  “Yeah, I do,” I insisted, nodding my head vigorously. I was in way over my head and drowning fast.

  “Then meet me at the diner on the corner at nine tonight…and don’t be late.”

  3

  I spent the rest of the day barely able to focus as I worked my way from replacing leaky drip pans to a rewiring job, courtesy of someone’s dog.

  I should have gotten Cherise’s phone number. Should have told her to meet me outside the diner—the owner of the café was a friend of my auntie’s. Next time I’d be sure and get her cell phone number. If there was a next time.

  I climbed out of my Acura and brushed away imaginary wrinkles from my favorite green plaid shirt, ironed just for her. I hadn’t been this worked up over a first date since high school.

  She appeared at the corner of the diner, striding down the sidewalk toward me, her hips swinging full tilt.

  She’d changed into a short skirt and heels. Did she ever wear anything that didn’t show her legs?

  Grinning at the thought, I circled the car and opened the door for her, eyeing her long, tanned legs as her skirt rode up. She got settled in the passenger seat but never fixed it. Just let it lay there, hugging the tops of her thighs.

  Thank God my jeans were loose enough my dick wouldn’t strangle. It was gonna be a long night.

  “Where to?” I asked once I was behind the wheel again. I kept my eyes firmly focused on the road as I followed her instructions to a club she knew.

  I wasn’t comfortable at all with the dimly lit parking lot behind the Manor. Not that the neighborhood was seedy. Far from it. For the life of me, I would never have guessed the type of place someone like Cherise would hang out would be located on the edge of River Oaks. Just a stone’s throw from some of Houston’s oldest mansions.

  On the outside, the club could have almost passed for someone’s house—and might have been at one time.

  Cherise greeted the hulking doorman by name, giving him a pat on the chest as she passed by. He grinned and held the door while she dragged me inside, as excited as a kid on the last day of school.

  The air was thick and heavy and smelled like sex. Like someone had bottled it and then sprayed it everywhere. I followed Cherise through the crowd toward the bar, almost unable to take my eyes off the three women on the makeshift stage, which was draped on either side with red velvet curtains. They were naked except for their thongs and the neon body paint they were smearing on each other as they wriggled around like happy puppies to some techno house jam. Techno was probably my least favorite music, but right then, they could have been dancing to opera.

  Two more women stopped in front of me and gave me a once-over. They were dressed almost identically in super-short vinyl skirts, their matching vests barely covering their tits. They could have passed for sisters, or at least cousins. I nearly choked on my tongue when they French-kissed each other. Make that kissing cousins.

  I had a feeling that, after tonight, I wouldn’t need to watch those pornos Kevin had loaned me.

  “What do you think?” Laughing, Cherise pressed against me and handed me a beer.

  I draped an arm around her waist, letting my hand settle on the curve of her ass, and took a long pull off my beer, glad for the distraction.

  “They’re all right.” They were more than all right. Kevin would shit when he found out about this place.

  With a knowing grin on her face, she clinked her bottle against mine and I took another long drink, hoping the cold beer would help clear my head. When I looked up again, the girls were gone, lost in the dim light and thick crowd.

  “Don’t worry,” Cherise assured me with another squeeze, “I’m sure we’ll see them again.”

  She shifted, nodding to her left at the couple—er trio—on the couch beside the bar. Some very slick-looking white dude had an arm draped around a tiny black girl, and he was fondling her tit while a brunette straddled his lap. Every once in a while he’d smack her bare ass.

  Okay, so it wasn’t completely bare. She was wearing a thong, but her miniskirt was pulled up to her waist, exposing every inch of a mouthwatering, heart-shaped ass.

  I turned away, trying to distract myself from the tiny patch of fabric that covered her pussy, the heat that almost suffocated me, and the hard-on growi
ng more uncomfortable by the minute.

  Most of the people around us were just as raunchy as the group on the couch. The bar was packed with people who were fairly normal-looking, beautiful, ugly, thin, or fat. I took it all in with a critical eye, trying to absorb the fact that I could have passed any of these folks on the street, or even fixed their air conditioners and never had a clue. The voice in my head kept chanting “holy shit” while the rest of me just felt sort of happy. It wasn’t just the sex and the groping and the naked women. It was the fact that nobody cared what anyone looked like, what anyone did, or how anyone acted.

  “Don’t stare.”

  I blinked and focused on Cherise, who’d been slowly leading me through the crowd. “Staring is rude. Watching isn’t, unless someone acts like they don’t want to be watched.”

  We made our way through the rest of the bar, traveling from room to room. Occasionally we’d find people sitting and talking, but that seemed to be the exception, not the rule. The rule was couples and trios and more, doing things I’d never seen live. The bordello-like couches and drapes fit. I felt like I’d stepped into another world. One I hadn’t even imagined—except for maybe in my wildest wet dreams—ever existed.

  “So, what do you think?” Cherise asked once we’d made a circuit of the bar. “Too rich for your blood?”

  Rich had nothing to do with money. “I’m not sure.” At that point, I was too fascinated and overwhelmed to make any decisions.

  We stood just inside the last room, the pulsating flicker of a black light highlighting two bodies on a sofa in the corner, a woman straddling a man’s lap, her tiny dress pushed up to expose a set of perfect C cups, a slightly rounded stomach, and what looked like a butterfly tattooed on her naked pussy. She stopped riding him and crooked her finger, motioning me over.

  “That is fucking hot.” And nasty. Dirty. Nasty. Hot.

  Cherise’s hand on my back, pushing me forward, set me in motion, and I slowly crossed the room, unsure of what to expect. The woman’s tits were heaving from the exertion, a smile on her face. The man behind her gave me a wink as she tugged at my shirt, pulling me down.

  I was gonna drown for sure. It was nasty, kissing her like that, with another man’s dick up in her, but I liked it.

  Yeah, I did, and I couldn’t even blame it on being drunk.

  I finally came up for air and glanced over my shoulder at Cherise, who stood with an arm around the French-kissing duo from earlier. They looked like they were cuddling, and the idea of watching Cherise with another woman went from being something I couldn’t imagine to being something I wanted to see. Badly.

  Suddenly, all I could think about was gettin’ the fuck out of there, gettin’ Cherise somewhere alone, and gettin’ rid of the ache in my balls. I crossed the tiny room and wrapped my hand around her upper arm, dragging her away from the duo who now stood laughing. “Let’s go.”

  She looked amused as I led the way outside and through the parking lot. After being inside the bar the evening was amazingly quiet, cool, and damp with the humidity that Houston was famous for. Our footsteps echoed off the asphalt.

  “You know, we could have—”

  “I’m not ready for that,” I said, practically dragging her to the car.

  “Did you like that?” she asked once we were safely back in the car.

  I shoved the keys in the ignition and turned on the headlights before answering. “You knew I would.”

  “Actually, no, I didn’t. Men’s sexual tastes vary as much as their preference for blondes or redheads or even girls with big asses.”

  Laughing, I backed the car out. “Your place?”

  “For what?” she asked softly.

  Okay, now she was just being a fuckin’ cock-tease. I stopped and leaned over, covering her lips with my own. Her mouth was still cold from the beer, and she was soft and a lot more submissive than I thought she’d be. I let her up for air long enough to bite at her lips, before diving back in and sucking her tongue into my mouth. Her soft moans grew louder and finally insistent enough that I released her, sagging in my own seat, my dick even more painfully hard than it had been when I’d left the bar. I thoughtfully wiped my mouth and said, “We can’t go to my place.”

  I didn’t take anyone to my place if I could help it. At least not the first time.

  A very subdued Cherise stroked my cock through my jeans while she gave me directions to her tiny efficiency a couple of blocks from the salon.

  “What about your car?” I asked as I parked directly in front of a green door with peeling paint. I pushed her hand away, desperate for a break from the intense friction or I wouldn’t last thirty seconds.

  “I walked. Now come on, sweet cheeks.” Grinning, she shrugged out of her seat belt and climbed from the car.

  I followed her up the tiny walk, pushing her inside before she could even get the key out of the lock. Her soft protest slowed me down, and I made myself content with running my hands up and down her thighs and burying my face in the nape of her neck. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. “Hurry,” I growled, wondering how much longer I could hang on.

  We made it as far as the couch. And we never got the lights on. I barely let her go long enough to let her fish a condom out of the end table drawer.

  “You keep condoms in your living room?”

  She giggled and shimmied out of her top. “For some reason, my dates never seem to make it upstairs.”

  I glanced up at the darkened loft as I tossed the condom wrapper aside and forced myself to slow down. This wasn’t a race, but watching her shimmy out of her skirt and panties made my mouth water. I slowly lifted each of Cherise’s feet and took off her shoes, giving the arch of each foot a nice deep rub with my thumb before sliding my hands up the length of her long, smooth legs.

  “I’m gonna have to get you to give me a foot massage sometime.” Smiling in the dim light, she used her leg to pull me closer.

  Not that I needed a lot of encouragement.

  She yanked my shirt over my head, and I shivered as a cool breeze from the fan overhead drifted across my back.

  “You need to finish getting naked.” I had her upright and her bra off before she could protest. Not that I thought she would.

  She stretched out on the couch, fingers playing with her nipples while I kicked off my Timberlands.

  Fucking with my shoes on just didn’t sit well with me.

  Then it was just me and her all soft underneath me, her tits crushed against my chest, her long-ass nails occasionally digging into my back as I slid home inside of her. She was hot and tight and slick enough to take my breath away, to pull a moan of satisfaction and frustration from the back of my throat.

  She met every thrust, her body arched against mine, her legs wrapped around my waist, and her lips moving nonstop. “Such a pretty baby,” she whispered, running a hand through my hair.

  The tug of my hair being pulled ever so slightly sent a spike of need to my balls and made me throb. I buried my face in her neck and gave it up, promising myself I’d make it up to her in round two. Something soft and slow that wouldn’t make me feel so greedy.

  I barely made it home in time to shower, change, and run through Jack in the Box for breakfast and coffee. The day was another busy one, and I didn’t surface for air until late in the afternoon when my cell phone rang. I stood in a backyard that hadn’t seen a lawn mower or rake in weeks, if not longer, slapping away mosquitoes and adding coolant to another air conditioner.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Cherise obviously didn’t believe in wasting words.

  “Gettin’ some rest,” I said with a smile. The crick in my back from sleeping on her couch had been worth it.

  “Why don’t we go out instead?”

  “How about Saturday night?” I countered. I was so tired, I’d be lucky if I made it through the rest of the day without screwing anything up.

  “Aw come on, it’s Friday! Just for a little while! I promise I’ll be good,” she purred.r />
  The sound of a screen door slamming nearby made me anxious to wrap it up. “No sex clubs tonight?”

  “Girl Scout’s honor.”

  Laughing, I knew there was no way I could turn her down despite the fatigue that permeated every inch of my body. “An hour, then.”

  Jimmy Z’s looked like the kind of place Kevin would bring businessmen from out of town looking to have a good time, and maybe get laid, but not spend as much as they would at a titty bar.

  In other words, very, very white collar.

  Good thing I only promised Cherise an hour.

  The bar reminded me of my aunt’s salon but more expensive and with chrome instead of gold.

  With Cherise’s directions in mind, I wandered up to the second level, searching for a table near the stairs where she’d said she’d be sitting with some friends. On top of being in a strange bar, meeting her friends wasn’t exactly something I was up for. Meeting friends was such a chick thing, but then, she wasn’t exactly a “normal” chick.

  Grinning at the thought, I wound my way through the crowd, still wondering what to expect when I finally located Cherise.

  She turned and said something to the waiter who nodded and disappeared into the thick crowd, then she slid off her stool and dragged me over by the hand so she could introduce me to her friends. She actually looked excited. Not sure if it was for my benefit or not, though.

  Who the hell knew black could look so good?

  Hell, Cherise was obviously the reason someone had invented black. Her pants hugged her hips, and she wore a snug black top that barely kept her tits under cover. It might have stood a chance if she’d been wearing a bra, but I’d bet my last paycheck she wasn’t. Not the way she nearly popped out of that flimsy little shirt. Damn, that was nice.

  And her friends weren’t hard to look at either.

  With her dark blond hair and tall, athletic build, Carlotta was sexy in an exotic, supermodel sort of way that made me look twice. Lexi, on the other hand, was smaller with a slighter build and red hair. She reminded me of the girl next door—if the girl next door had been white.