Making a Scene Read online

  Making a Scene

  Trudy Doyle

  Crimes & Misdemeanors, Book One

  Pamela Flynn, author of a hot detective series, has one week to get her sexy alter egos to finally drop the double entendre and make it real. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but ever since Pam caught her live-in boyfriend in bed with her oldest friend, she’s been cursed with the continual blank page.

  Enter the smokin’-hot owner of the neighborhood’s new coffee bistro, ex-cop Roark Carmelli, who is only too happy to help Pam crush her writer’s block. Inspiring her in ways she’s never dreamed, he brings all her fantasies to life on a stakeout, in a limo, and during one unforgettably erotic night overlooking Central Park.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Making a Scene

  Trudy Doyle

  Chapter One

  I can’t do sex. Absolute truth. Believe me, I’ve been trying really hard, but it still won’t come.

  Oh dear. That last sentence was a bit too Freudian even for me. Let me put it another way.

  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

  No, no, no. Not the flesh. The flesh is as hard as an oiled-up Mr. Universe in full competition pose, and has been that way for what I’ve been told, way too long now. What I mean is the pen is weak. Or rather, the keyboard. Oh damn—that’s not what I mean either. Let me explain.

  The name’s Pamela Flynn. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. Not to sound self-absorbed, but I do have three bestsellers under my belt in the Tanaka & Shields series. You know, the hot Philadelphia detective duo? All right, maybe you haven’t heard of them, but the last time out they did make the New York Times extended list, have a very loyal following, and my agent tells me a pretty prestigious production company is more than interested. But only under one condition.

  “They gotta have sex,” she told me just the other day.

  A benign day, but to the uninformed, anything but. You see I was still freaking, still hot to the touch, still so ragged around the edges, telling me I had to do sex was like telling me to speak Chinese. I just couldn’t do it. I switched the phone to my other ear. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Holy cow, Pammy—were you home sick the day the teacher showed the video? I’m talking screw, sweetie, a bit of the in-and-out, making the beast with two backs, his love hammer in her velvet sheath, sweaty, heavy-breathing—”

  “I got it, Renee, jeez.” Something shiny under the sofa caught my eye. So that’s where his glasses fell. I had to talk her out of this. “But don’t you realize? If they screw, the sexual tension goes right out the window.”

  “Sweetie, listen to me, if things get any more tense he’s gonna have a full-throttle nervous breakdown. Let the man blow some steam already. I mean, he’s from Japan, right? How about that scene in the warehouse? Throw in some hot tantric sex.”

  “Oh that’s realistic. A roomful of goons two feet away and he’s looking for her G-spot? And by the way, he’s from Seattle don’t forget, and hardly—”

  “He’s a man, Pammy, a sturdy, healthy, woman-screwing man, and realistically, men like that have sex. And if you don’t put it in, someone else will do it for you.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “You sell the rights, Pammy, they can do whatever they want. Do it now and you’ll get it down your way.”

  “Which, in the end, will make all of us just a little bit richer, won’t it, Pamela?” another voice cut in.

  “Consuelo?” My editor. “A conference call, eh? Ganging up on me?”

  “It’s a gang bang!” Renee whooped. “See? You’ve already started.”

  “Nevertheless,” Consuelo said briskly, her cultured voice snapping, “in her own crudely descriptive way, Renee’s absolutely right. It’s essential for the protagonists to rise to the next level if we want to make this series more commercially viable. Frankly, I don’t see any other way you can go. Sex sells, Pamela, and this could be your big chance. If I were you, I’d run with it.”

  “But—”

  “Pammy, c’mon. It’s just sex. What’s the problem anyway?”

  Problem? His lenses caught the westing sun, shooting a shaft of light near-blinding. “I just don’t know if they’re ready for that yet.”

  “Then, Pamela, make them ready,” said Consuelo most authoritatively. “Because if they can’t be, then maybe we’ll have to—”

  “She’ll do it, she’ll do it,” Renee assured my editor. “Won’t you, Pammy?”

  Suddenly I was frozen, positively iced. “I-I don’t—”

  “Connie, she’ll do it. Don’t worry.”

  “Fine,” said Consuelo, sounding unconvinced. “I’ll expect the pages in a week.”

  “One week?” They had to be kidding.

  “She’ll have them,” said Renee. “Don’t worry. Right, Pammy? She’s getting to work right now.” And just like that, they both hung up. And hung me out to dry.

  Great. Fine. Peachy. So here I sit, twenty-four hours later, out of patience and devoid of ideas, those glasses staring back at me like the painful reminder they are, a souvenir of that infamous afternoon, spectacles from the spectacle I had witnessed. I shifted in my chair, staring across to my open bedroom door, gaping at me as I had shamelessly gaped myself.

  The room wasn’t the only thing that had been left wide open.

  Was totally my fault, really. I shouldn’t have ever let him move in. But Josh intrigued me, this slinky, urban version of the country innocent, attentive and fawning and aw-shucks self-deprecating, though underneath, I’d find out, every bit the snake. At the time I just felt sorry for the poor struggling grad student, so for the past two months, as a trade-off for rent, I let him keep me sated, fed and focused while I wrote. He’d clean my apartment and wash my clothes, in between attending master’s classes at the University of Penn and pouring drinks part-time at a local bar two blocks over. Then one night a week ago, after I had spent the day researching in Washington, I came home to the last thing in the world I wanted to see.

  Karen and I have been friends since grade school, not as tight as when we were kids, but we still kept in touch. So when she called to say she was coming down from Pittsburgh for a wedding here in Riverboro, I insisted she stay with me. And if I hadn’t made prior arrangements to meet with Dr. Kettlebaum at the Smithsonian, I wouldn’t have been gone the day in question. But Josh assured me he’d entertain her until he had to leave for work and oh, boy, did that boy ever.

  We’d planned on my getting home around eight, catching a meal at the diner, then meeting up with Josh at work for drinks. But I’d finished with Dr. Kettlebaum an hour early and the trains, miraculously, were running ahead of schedule, which got me to my door at a little past six thirty. And then I opened it.

  Any writer can tell you what it’s like to be deep in the zone of a good plotline. When the story is flowing out of you so like dictation, the Philharmonic could be right next to you blasting the cannons of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and you wouldn’t hear a damn thing. I’m using this analogy to explain what I saw when I walked into my living room that night in the only plausible way I know how. Because to think they planned it that way was just a little too kink for this Jersey girl, so properly stunned into disbelief she fell smack down into a chair, directly opposite the open bedroom door. Where, without the benefit of a keyhole, she then proceeded to watch the whole thing.

  Advantageous, how I angled my bed. It afforded me the perfect view. Because if there was anything perfect about Josh, it was his ass, compact and smooth and as taut as a drum, moving with perfect rhythm as he thrust his cock in and out of Karen’s mouth. With gymnastic precision, he had twisted from his side and positioned himself between her legs akimbo and, gra
bbing on to my headboard, dragged his cock up her breasts and around her nipples until the slickened head of it met her greedy tongue. After a few experimental flicks and nips, she latched on to his ass and pushed his cock full into her mouth, her body writhing beneath him as though she were gliding on oil.

  I watched, breathless, as Josh’s ass tightened and relaxed, the muscles of his sleek back rippling with each thrust, his balls lightly tapping her chin until she sucked one at a time into her mouth. Good golly! I thought, she put me to shame. I never thought of doing that. Back and forth she batted them, one at a time until she slid his cock out of her mouth and sucked both balls in, Josh arching back as his cock vibrated like a tuning fork, shiny and wet and as engorged as ripe fruit. A minute more and her tongue wandered farther, her head twisting as she licked and nipped and sucked her way into the cleft of his ass, his body shuddering as his cock stiffened, a glistening appearing on the head. Then suddenly he pushed her off and, looming above her, growled, “Babe, I’m gonna do you like I’ve never dreamed of doing anyone before.”

  I gasped. If I wasn’t frozen before, this nailed me right to the chair.

  He flipped her on her belly and, reaching under the bed, pulled out two lengths of velvet rope. Where had those come from? If they’ve been under there the whole time I sure as hell didn’t know it. He looped one each over her wrists and the other ends to the bedposts, raising her up and spreading her arms wide, tucking pillows for support under her copious, heaving breasts.

  “Comfortable?” he asked, giving her ass an experimental pinch.

  She tossed her head to the side. “Fuck you,” she spat, her voice thick and sultry. “I should have bit your dick off.”

  “Oh yeah?” He laughed. “When I get done with you you’re gonna wish you had.” Then he kneeled to her side and, hauling his hand back, sped it to her ass with a loud and ear-rattling smack!

  “Oh!” she yelped. Smack! “Uh!” she squeaked, squirming, writhing. Three, four, five times he walloped her, her skin pinking as again and again and again he spanked and spanked until her ass patterned with his handprints, her hips grinding into the mattress.

  “You bastard!” she cried. “Just you wait!”

  Smack! “And what you gonna do?” he asked, pinching her breast as he shoved between her legs. He dipped his fingers into an opened jar and slathered the crack of her abused and bucking ass with what I quickly recognized as my sixty-dollar face cream. Then he reached to the side and, ripping open the packet, slid a condom down before he spread her swollen cheeks and drove his cock deep into her anus.

  Karen screamed, shuddering.

  “Shut up,” Josh snapped, his faux cruelty liberally coated in lust, yet my only coherent thought was how dry my face would get until I could get to Center City to get another jar of cream. Because no way was I ever using that jar again.

  I was losing it, for sure.

  “Bastard!” she cried. He grabbed hold of the headboard and, thrusting his hips with an intensity that should’ve pinned her to the wallboard, banged her a few more times before he unhooked her wrists and flipped her over. As soon as he did, she grabbed his head and shoved it into her crotch.

  Holy shamoly, the woman was bald. Shaved as smooth as the head of an NBA All-Star, and the sight of it sent Josh shivering. He spread her legs wide and dove into her crotch, his hand kneading her pussy as his tongue flicked and teased and circled her clit, two fingers delving deep inside her slick and glistening vagina. Then all at once her hips jerked and she screamed again, her body spasming as his fingers pumped her to orgasm, his lips and tongue alternately sucking and flicking her swollen clit until her baby-bald pussy ground to a halt against him.

  “Son of a…” she panted, her arm falling to the side of the bed.

  He arched up. “Oh yeah? You’re not done, babe. Not by a long shot.”

  In an instant she was at him. “Fuck you!” she spat, grabbing his cock. She ripped off the condom and he yelped, his dick longer and stiffer and flat-out more excited than it had ever been with me. I gripped the armrests, my fingers clawing into the upholstery and, for the first time in however many minutes I had spent muted and glued to that chair, I suddenly became aware of the raw physicality of my stupefied body. Much to my horror, it was aroused.

  I’m talking underwear-soaked-to-my-jeans on fire.

  “Bitch!” Josh grabbed her hips and yanked her down the bed, climbing atop her. She cupped her breasts, squeezing them together until they mounded her chest like two creamy cantaloupes, her nipples taut enough to scratch glass. He dragged himself up her belly and once his balls snuggled up to her breasts, he dipped again into my lessening supply of face cream, slathering it into the cleft of her tits. Then he jerked back and shoved his cock between her girls, Karen pumping and squeezing them against his quivering rod as though she were some deranged accordion player.

  “Holyfuckingholyfucking—” Josh sputtered, his cock sliding in and out, his Calvin Klein-worthy ass tightening and slackening, his back starting to sweat. As he thrust and groaned, as Karen pumped and squeezed and slung enough degrading epithets to cow even the most ardent egomaniac, I felt my body rising, my heart pounding with triathlete intensity, my head spinning with jealousy and confusion and no doubt about it—mindless animal lust.

  “Gaaaaaa!” Josh tossed his head back and with a seismic shudder, came, sending a fire-hose force of ejaculation straight into Karen’s waiting mouth. She gulped it back, licking her lips as I sat there transfixed, Josh finally falling atop her in a spent, leaden heap. After a couple of breathy seconds, Karen sighed and languorously raised up on her elbows. And looked dead at me.

  “Well. Hello, there,” she said with a smile. “Why don’t you join us?”

  Josh flinched, his gaze snapping to me, his whole body paling until his face took on a kind of confidence wholly inappropriate for such a compromising situation. “Damn, Karen, I think she already has.”

  My first impulse should have had me screaming what the hell did he think he was doing, followed by a well-aimed piece of crockery at a sensitive part of his anatomy. But with all my lust muscles still on high alert, it took a couple of cobweb-displacing shakes of the head to get my brain reacquainted with my body, allowing awareness to finally seep in. Which then led me to a whole new plane of abject mortification.

  There I was, mouth agape, clit throbbing, my zipper halfway down. To put it simply, I simply wanted to die.

  “You fucking bastards,” I said.

  Josh slung his legs off the bed and slid his glasses on, standing up. “You watched the whole thing, didn’t you?”

  “Are you insane?” I said, covertly zipping.

  “I saw that,” Karen said, sitting back on her haunches. “She most definitely had her hand down her pants.”

  Josh walked over, unapologetically naked, both of them looking at me as clinically as a psychoanalyst at a patient. Then he smiled. “Jesus, Pam, you should’ve told me you liked to watch. We could’ve done this a long time ago.”

  I stood up, my sense finally returning. “Get out of my house.”

  “Take it easy,” he said, scratching his chest as he eyed me up and down. “We were just having some fun.”

  “And I’m just throwing you out.” If he thought this cavalier attitude would win me over, my boy was seriously deluded. “Get your stuff and get out.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Pam!” Josh cried, flapping his arms. “Grow the fuck up. It’s just sex—nothing personal.”

  “Pammy, that’s right,” Karen cooed, slipping into her jeans as she slid off the bed. My bed. “You’re one of my oldest friends. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

  That simple statement was just about enough to make me blow a gasket. I grabbed my phone. “Get out of my house now—both of you—or I swear to God I’m calling the police.”

  Josh huffed, rolling his eyes as he came toward me. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re such a goddamn diva. Well, let me tell you something. T
hat,” he pointed to my crotch, “is worth nothing without those,” he said, pointing to the Tanaka & Shields books on the shelf. “Face it, babe, your ass, as big as it is, ain’t getting any younger.”

  That did it. I hauled off and cracked him across his face, his eyes rolling back, his glasses flying off. “Get out of my house!” I shrieked, which, finally, they took seriously. Both scrambled for their things, Karen sputtering and ranting and finally sobbing an apology. But Josh remained arrogant to the end.

  “I still don’t get what you’re so pissed about,” he said, rubbing his cheek as he walked out the door. “It’s not like I really even fucked her.”

  No. He fucked me. Royally. Because here I am, one day into a seven-day deadline and I’m still staring at a blank screen, my libido crushed by a betrayal in the most literal of senses. I turn my chair and there’s my bedroom again, the gaping maw of its doorway as much an invitation as a taunt, the humiliation of them seeing me still fresh and seeping. I can’t imagine ever having sex again let alone writing about it. Who knows when I’ll be able to sleep in my bed, and definitely not before I can strip it down and get the bloody thing fumigated. I go to it. Oh hell. This is never going to work. I look at my watch. It’s eight thirty, my morning coffee jones coming on strong. I go to the kitchen, and what’s left in the can wouldn’t make even half a cup. I toss it to the recycling and lean against the counter. Damn. That’s something I’m going to have to get used to again—living alone. Josh was pretty good at taking care of the domestic side of my life, and for an instant I truly miss him. My phone rings.

  I’m so not in the mood for talking. Because somehow I know who it is. So I let voice mail do my dirty work, and when I pick up the message a minute later, sure enough, it’s Renee.

  “How’s it going, Pammy? Got them on their backs yet? Well, I don’t want to break your rhythm, but don’t forget you only have six days to go with this, sweetie. Keep me posted.”