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  Gus dug into his meal, his gaze still fixed on me as he ate. Eventually, he asked, "Is this your way of telling me I'm not special, Miz Malik?"

  "Do you need to be special?"

  He bobbed his head as he speared a few chickpeas. "Doesn't hurt."

  "Mmhmm. I see the royal bloodline runs thick with you."

  He choked out a brittle laugh. "Says the kingmaker."

  Again, my brows winged up. He knew something of my history as the right hand to brilliant leaders, as the second-in-command who consistently helped the first shine in spite of themselves. This man was robbing me of my poker face and I didn't care for it one bit. "It seems you've done some background study of your own."

  Gus reached across the table, drummed his fingertips on the back of my wrist. "You like that, don't you? You like when someone digs up your dirt. You like being noticed. Explored."

  I gave him a disinterested frown and returned to my biryani. What had I been thinking? What made me believe I could share a meal with this man and his arrogance and—and his hands?

  We ate in silence for several minutes before he said, "You found my comment offensive."

  "Not offensive. Rather, needlessly self-important."

  "And that's an issue for you?" When I blinked at him, he continued, "I've been here for less than two months and I know everyone in the Valley is needlessly self-important. Compared to most of these motherfuckers, I'm Humble Henry."

  "And yet you're the only one inserting yourself into my day and leaving a flock of birds behind."

  He grimaced, cut his gaze to the VCs beside us. "Forgive me for doing my job in a manner that fails to align with your specific vision, Miz Malik."

  I was prepared to volley back but stopped myself. My attention was my greatest asset and I wasn't paying it to this petty debate. "Let's set these issues aside for now. We can share one meal without contention. I'm sure of it."

  He blinked at me as if he was surprised by this request. "Certainly."

  After a thorny pause, I asked, "How is your meal?"

  He bobbed his head as he savored a bite of dosa. "Excellent. Best I've had in—I don't know—years. And I think that was in Mexico City."

  "Mexico City has amazing Indian food." I hummed in agreement. "Whenever I'm traveling, I try to sneak in stops at local Indian restaurants. I have an ongoing samosa study."

  I watched a warm, cheerful smile brighten his face and crinkle his eyes. "What's this samosa study involve?"

  I pressed the edge of my fork into the uttapam, suddenly and irrationally shy about my multi-continent cataloging of Indian cuisine. "I'm not sure whether it's an atavistic desire or callback to my childhood." I paused, studied my tray. "We didn't eat out when I was a child. We didn't have the money for restaurants and my parents didn't enjoy the local favorites. It took them twenty years to fully embrace Lowcountry barbeque. But on special occasions, my parents loaded us into the car and we'd drive to different cities in the area. Greenville, Spartanburg, Asheville. Athens, once. We'd always go out for Indian and meet the Desi people in that area. Even if they didn't hail from the same region as my parents or speak the same dialect or cook the same ways, they were our people, our extended family. And now, well, I just—I tend to judge cities by the quality of their samosas…and other dishes."

  He made a sound. A rumbly, growly, throaty sound. Somehow, I knew it was one of approval. "Yeah? Any surprises?"

  "I'm not sure about surprises." I sampled the uttapam. I loved these savory pancakes topped with tomatoes and onions. That they constituted a traditional South Indian breakfast mattered little to me. If they were crisp and fresh, I'd eat them any time of day. "There are Desi people all around the world and many of them make superb food." I gave him a pointed nod. "Just as there are French and Brazilian people everywhere and some of them choose to carry on their cultures in the most delicious ways."

  "Point taken." He drummed my wrist again. This time, he went to the trouble of dragging his fingertips over the back of my hand and staring into my eyes while he did. So damn arrogant. "But I still want to know your favorites."

  I thought for a moment. "Albuquerque. Egypt, outside Cairo. Beijing. Then again, there are no bad meals in Beijing."

  "Haven't been."

  I tipped my chin down. "Now, that's surprising. I figured you'd gone everywhere worth going."

  Shaking his head, he said, "South and Central America, sure. Western Europe, yes. Portions of Africa, mostly northern. As far as Asia and much of North America, I have a lot of ground to cover. I don't know much outside the Southwest."

  I pointed my fork at him. It was rude but I found myself wanting to be rude with him, just a bit. "You don't have an accent."

  He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek. "Neither do you."

  "I'm American. I grew up here." I waved at the table. "Not California, but South Carolina."

  "Doesn't South Carolina saddle its progeny with a loose-tongued twang?"

  I thought back to my pre-college self. Before Stanford, the Bay Area, and Silicon Valley stripped the South from me. Not that I missed it. South Carolina was the place my parents lived but it wasn't fundamental to my identity the way some of my peers held California or Colorado or Texas fundamental to their identities.

  "Some. Doesn't Brazil do something of the same?"

  "No twang with the Portuguese, fofinho." He chuckled, drew his index finger over my knuckles. "Whichever accent I had, I lost at boarding school."

  I watched as he dragged a bit of naan through the remains of several dishes, blurring all sauces and spices into one savory scoop. "Tell me, Mr. Guillmand." I grinned as the name bristled over him. "How are you finding California?"

  He seesawed his hand. "I got here, didn't I? I can handle a map."

  "That's not what I meant, you unbearable man."

  He shrugged and held up his palms while he nested his leg between both of mine. His jeans were rough against my unadorned skin, almost overwhelming, but I kept that reaction off my face. He eyed the gulab jamun on my tray, pointed. "What's that? They smell like flowers."

  "Rosewater. It's not typical but it's my favorite." I tore one in half and offered it to him. He accepted, but not without curling his fingers around my wrist and eating from my hand. "It's similar to a doughnut hole, but for dessert."

  He sucked the sweetness right off my fingers and he did it while the VCs gaped at us. More than one Slack channel was blowing up this evening. "Delicious," he murmured, seemingly immune to our audience. Not that I cared much for them either.

  "Mmhmm." I gulped back a groan. "If they weren't boiling hot from the fryer, I'd eat them before anything else."

  Gus tilted his head to the side, brought my thumb to his lips. "I'd eat you before anything else, Miz Malik."

  Chapter Four

  Gus

  Alla Prima: the act of creating a painting in a single sitting, often without any preparation or underpainting.

  She'd flitted away like a sandpiper on the shore. It happened faster than the blink of an eye, but she'd jerked her hand from my grasp, jolted out of her seat, and offered some boilerplate bullshit about enjoying the meal we'd shared and seeing me around the campus but needing to excuse herself right fucking now.

  All while the taste of her skin lingered on my tongue.

  And then she'd left.

  The nonstop crowds prevented me from tracking her movement through the restaurant, but even if I'd wanted to follow her, I couldn't pry myself from this chair. If the heaviness in my cock wasn't enough to keep me seated, the weight of the world as it shifted on my shoulders was.

  I wasn't one to process thoughts or emotions with words and I didn't have them now. But Miz Malik's departure left me with the definite sense I'd met my match.

  I'd met her and she was delicious.

  Slumped back, I folded my arms over my chest and scanned the crowd again. I'd missed the colorful art on the walls when I'd first arrived. I'd been busy gazing at the raven-haired beau
ty who'd appeared like an out-of-reach apparition intended to punish me for my basest desires.

  Then she'd all but purred under my touch and I couldn't stop. Couldn't separate myself from her skin, even as that punishment closed in, loomed large. I'd scraped my teeth over her thumb and asked for it, damn near whispered, "Give me your worst."

  I hadn't noticed signs for the adjoining spice market either. I'd noticed nothing but her dark, luminous skin and the way my palms pulsed with the boundless desire to touch her until I knew every secret her body would share. And I still wanted it. I wanted it all.

  As if drawn by my true north, I jolted out of my seat and picked my way through the eatery until the crowd fell away and the orderly rows of a small grocery opened before me.

  I found her pushing up on her toes to reach a jar on a high shelf. Her calves lengthened, the hem of her dress shifted up her glorious thighs. The backs of her persimmon shoes fell away from her heels as she stretched.

  "Mr. Guillmand," she murmured. She didn't bother glancing in my direction. Didn't look away from the spices before her. "I see you've returned."

  "Miz Malik," I said, her name nothing more than a sigh. "I believe you've been caught."

  "Then," she panted, trying once more to grab the jar, "come catch me."

  One urgent stride put me behind her but it was another step that aligned her full backside with my crotch. My hand found her hip, squeezed that supple curve. I traced the length of her arm from shoulder to fingertip as I tapped the jar. "This one?"

  She nodded, hummed.

  I retrieved the saffron, pressed the glass between her breasts. Her body stiffened but she allowed another hum, another nod. "Yes," she breathed. "That."

  "You're such a good girl," I said, my words little more than a hiss as I spoke directly to the tender skin below her ear. "So fucking good, aren't you?"

  "Yes," she whispered, her head bobbing once.

  That was all she'd offer. A whisper, a nod. Nothing else. She didn't allow herself much but she allowed me far more. And now that I was here, I intended to take everything I wanted. Not because I was an egotistical bastard—despite Miz Malik's impression of me—but because she wanted me to take everything she had to give.

  Hell, if she'd meant to cut me off, she would've left. She wouldn't be here, glaring at spices, waiting for me.

  "Neera." My fingertips grazed her torso and found her nipple, stiff through her dress, and—if I wasn't mistaken—the hard nub of a barbell too. "Can you give me a single reason why I shouldn't pull up this skirt and taste your cunt right here?"

  She swiveled her head from side to side, wiggled her fingers at her side. If my words stunned her, it didn't show. "None that I can think of."

  I shifted my other hand from her hip, laced my fingers through hers. I placed her hand on her skirt, over the vee between her legs. Together, we stroked and circled until her head fell back on my shoulder and that hum was a beautiful moan. She rocked her ass against my aching cock. "Don't say things you don't mean, sparrow."

  She fired a searing glance over her shoulder.

  I had to mentally negotiate my way out of biting her neck for that look. Biting her neck, unbuttoning my fly, fucking her while a wall of spices crashed around us. I saw it in brutal oil paint like the exquisite disaster we were, a field of broken glass at our feet and a cloud of color and scent rising around us.

  "Good girls don't get fucked in public." I licked my way up her neck, my face buried in her hair. If her cunt tasted anything like her neck, I wanted to drown between her legs. "Good girls don't let the world see them come."

  She rocked against our joined hands and touching her over her clothes was no longer adequate. I needed much more. "You're baiting me."

  "You're damn right I am, Miz Malik." I bunched her skirt in my fist, rucking it up inch by inch. "Is it working?"

  A laugh rolled through her body before it burst over her lips. "I believe you know it is, Gus."

  The portion of my brain dedicated to rational judgment quieted to a whisper as the hedonistic portion let out a primal roar. "Don't you ever want to do something bad, little sparrow?"

  She dipped her chin, watching as the front of her skirt lifted just enough for our fingers to meet the damp fabric of her panties.

  Anyone could've walked by.

  Anyone could've heard her sigh in pleasure as we worked her clit.

  Anyone could've watched my cock spreading the plump curve of her ass.

  Anyone.

  And she wanted it—needed it—that way.

  "How do good girls feel about getting their fuck in the back of a Jeep?"

  Chapter Five

  Neera

  Sfumato: a technique in painting or drawing where the use of fine shading creates delicate, imperceptible transitions between colors and tones.

  "Don't you ever want," he started, his breath whispering over my ear, "to do something bad, little sparrow?"

  I was nodding, purring in response before I could think better of it. And why did I have to think better of it? I did not.

  "How do good girls feel about getting their fuck in the back of a Jeep?"

  Again, I didn't think. Couldn't think. "I'd enjoy that now, please."

  His index finger edged under my panties, between my folds. He thrummed my clit hard enough to cross my eyes and buckle my knees. I reached for him, anchoring myself with my fist tight around his belt. "What then?" he asked, his words rough, strained. "You ride this dick a time or two"—he pinched my clit between his thick fingers and I choked back a sobbing scream—"and then you're done?"

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I've only agreed to riding your dick once. I'll see how that goes before planning an encore."

  His teeth pressed into my shoulder, just shy of biting the skin through my dress. He growled out a sigh, saying, "I'm parked around the corner, Neera. Let's go."

  Gus took a step to the side, one arm locked around my waist with my dress in hand, the other working my clit. "Have you forgotten we're in a rather indelicate position?"

  His fingers stroked my seam just enough to fray the last of my nerves. I was throbbing, bursting, dying with need.

  "Haven't forgotten."

  A small laugh tumbled past my lips. "If I'm to exit this establishment with you, I must ask that you release me."

  "Is that the proper thing to do? Or is that what you want?" Before I could reply, Gus continued, "Because I think you want me to strip you down, spread you out on one of those long tables back in the restaurant, and fuck you until everyone—everyone—knows you're not even close to a good girl."

  Without conscious thought, my body tightened against his words. "Yes."

  Gus tugged my hand away from my center, sucked my fingers into his mouth. Before I could react to the sensation of his tongue against the pads of my fingers, he delivered a sharp slap—then a second, a third—to my pussy. The startled gasp I heard must've belonged to me but I couldn't process any thoughts beyond the need vibrating through my body. The clench in my core was real, spine-bending pain and I knew I'd do anything, anything at all to soothe it.

  "Come now, little sparrow." Gus straightened my dress and ran his hands down my sides, raking his fingers over my nipples as he went. "You might be delirious from the idea of an audience but I'm not ready to share that much of you with that many people. Not yet."

  Whether the walk to Gus's car was long or short, I couldn't say. I wasn't sure where I'd left the jar of saffron. The only sound between us was the slap of my flats against the sidewalk and the hum of the city around us. The summer sun was still high in the sky but I couldn't say whether the air was hot, cold, or wet because I was melting from the inside out. All I knew was the aching desire to be filled by him…and to be seen. I didn't want to examine that urge closely, didn't want to uncover its true meaning. But I wanted to feel filthy and depraved and—and gorgeously used.

  By him. The man who irritated the hell out of me with his arrogance. The man who invented the
art of condescending to me by saying little more than my name. This man. He was the one I entrusted with a desire so fresh and raw that I didn't know whether it'd lived dormant in me all this time or it was a product of his presence.

  "This is what you want?" Gus stopped on the sidewalk, opened the black Jeep's back door, crowded me against it. His lips mapped my neck, jaw, cheeks, mouth. The hard line of his arousal bumped against my belly.

  A breath caught in my throat and my entire body wavered as an emphatic Yes pulsed through my veins. But I steadied myself and hit him with a chilly stare. "Are your eyes bigger than your cock, Mr. Guillmand?"

  "You get those panties off or I'll rip them off," he answered, his thumb and forefinger busy twisting my pierced nipple through my dress. "I will rip them right off you, sparrow."

  I slipped out of his hold and into the Jeep, intentionally forcing my skirt up my thighs as I scooted over the bench until the lacy purple peeked out. "Yes, it does seem like you'll need to do that."

  Gus glanced down the street, rocked back on his heels, and rubbed a hand over his brow as he murmured, "Fuuuuuck."

  Then he lunged for me, his hands fisting around the delicate fabric and pulling it taut between my folds. The band cut into my hips, certain to leave marks, but I couldn't care about anything beyond the unchained gleam in his eyes. That was for me.

  With nothing more than my panties as leverage, he dragged my body closer to the open door. Still rooted on the street, he bent over me and traced his nose along the waist of my panties. He whispered to my skin in a language I didn't understand and shredded the lace in one brutal tear.

  When the cool evening air met my swollen skin, a shiver twisted through my body. "Gus." It came out as a pant, as a plea, and he required no further direction. His mouth covered my mound, sucking and licking until I was there, I was right there.