Chapter 19
CHASTITY
Paisley:How’s Operation Yoni going?
Me: I think I’d rather stick to calling my vagina Barbara, thanks very much.
I slide my phone away before Paisley replies with some other ridiculousness and make my way to the studio door to lock up for the day. I’m just about to set the alarm when the roar of a motorbike pulling into the carpark gives me a start. The studio isn’t in a great end of town. Also, “studio” might be too lofty a title because it really isn’t much more than a unit housed in an industrial estate because who wants to rent space to a company that makes dirty movies?
But I digress; the motorbike.
I pause at the doorway, one hand holding the large bundle of keys with the other wrapped around the heavy steel door. The clearly expensive machine pulls to a stop almost directly outside of the building. The powerful engine cuts out, and still I don’t move. While the registered office of my company isn’t this address, I still feel the slight warning edge of anxiety creeping in when I think of the weirdos I’ve had contact me in the past. Not that I’ve ever made myself the face of the company, but in the early days, certainly around Fast Girls inception, we did get quite a bit of media interest. And following that, a few strangers with even stranger requests had sought me out.
My footing is sure and my body tense as the rider dismounts and reaches for his helmet. A suit and a pocket square? This is either a man who means business or is hereonbusiness? Either way, I don’t think anyone is murdering me today. Not in the way my imagination had sprung to because I recognise the hard body under that suit...
Chastity Leonore Landry, peddler of posh smut, killed by the sight of a man in a sharply tailored suit.
The rider lifts his hands to his helmet, the action of removing it slowing to striptease pace, eventually revealing Flynn’s gorgeous, though slightly battered face.
‘Are you seriously wearing Tom Ford on a motorbike?’
‘G’day, Chastity.’ After our awkward Sunday lunch, it does my heart good to see his almost perma-cocky grin firmly back in place.
‘Well?’ I ask, sounding like my aunt Camilla. Out with it, boy!Yes, please,pings a voice somewhere in the vicinity of my knickers.
Flynn glances down at his suit before making a show of brushing invisible dust from his shoulders. I’ve never seen Flynn in anything other than jeans, apart from when we were in St Lucia, and I can’t for the life of me remember what he wore then. Though I remember every inch of him without his clothes because who could forget that? Those toned abs with a happy trail leading to a lewd kind of heaven. His strong, tanned arms and lightly furred legs. The pale scar on his side he’d attributed to a surfing mishap, and the way his hair had fallen over his forehead as his body rippled above mine.
‘You like thege-ah?’ he asks, moving closer in a confident swagger.
‘The w-what? Oh, the gear—your suit. You scrub up well, I suppose. But isn’t it dangerous to ride a machine like that in just good tailoring?’ A dark blue suit, his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and a tie that complements the brilliant shade of his eyes, knotted but loose from the collar. And a matching pocket square? He looks moreGQthan Mellors the gardener.
‘You think I should wear protection?’
I’mnottouching that. ‘Aren’t you supposed to wear leathers or something?’
‘That sounds like an invitation to star in one of your movies.’ His gaze flares cheekily, and then he’s in front of me, his eyes sliding over my shoulder to the darkened studio beyond. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘What for? Why are you here, Flynn?’
‘Maybe I’ve come to audition.’
‘We d-don’t audition. We interview. And in a public place.’
He sets off laughing. ‘You have hidden depths, my tiny, dirty girl.’
I frown and bite my lip rather than spit the words my brain has supplied—you wish—because that would probably take us tumbling down that tempting rabbit hole. And what would be the point of that? I’d just be repeating my mistakes. And that’s the definition of madness—doing the same thing over and over while expecting the results to change.
The jet black helmet dangles from his fingers of his left hand as he uses his other to loosen the single button on his suit jacket, only to slide that hand into his pants pocket.
‘You spend an awful lot of time with your hands in there.’ I glance down, automatically feeling the need to qualify the statement. ‘In your pocket, I mean.’ I continue to stare at the outline of his hand through the expensive suiting.
‘You’re doing it again.’ His voice is almost a whole octave lower, a hint of gravel in his tone. ‘You’re looking at me like you’re imagining me without my clothes. And I fuckin’ love it.’
‘Is it a comfort thing?’ I ask, ignoring both his tone and his dangerous words and keeping my eyes studiously from his. On second thought, staring at his pants as though wearing X-ray specs isn’t sending the right kind of message, either. As I lift my head, like a magnet, my gaze is drawn to his, my mouth running away with me again. ‘Or do you just like to make sure it’s still there?Constantly.’
‘You’re asking me if I like touching my own dick? Are you the masturbation police, Chastity? Feel free to say yes because I think you might need to take me prisoner.’
‘I didn’t remember you mentioning that you wanted to write scripts as part of the consult.’ Snark. This tone of voice and I are very familiar where Flynn is concerned.
