Heller’s Decision (11 page)

“
Except us, apparently,” spoke up Roger
with heat in his voice.

“
Yeah, except you do-gooders, trying to
shut down legitimate businesses with your over-active morality.
Kind of ironic from people who fuck for a living, doncha
think?”

“
You’re not legitimate, mate,” asserted
Roger, flaming up again.

“
Prove it
,
mate
,” the big
guy snarled.

“
We all know who owns PRON Productions. We
all know what kind of movies you make,” Roger said
aggressively.

The cheap gangsters laughed at
him.

“
Let’s go, Roger,” I urged, pushing him
forward towards the door to the carpark. “Forget them. They’re
nothing but a gang of arseholes.”

“
Guess you’d know
all about gangs and arseholes, darling. Bet you’ve
had yours plugged a few times,” insinuated one of the other men in
a comment that made the other men snigger. “And if you haven’t,
we’d be happy to demonstrate.”

This time I stopped and turned around.
Only Bick’s insistent hand across my back kept me stumbling forward
towards that exit door.

He did well to herd the three of us to the
carpark without allowing the situation to escalate. Now that was
something I decided I
would
tell Heller about.

Chapter 7

Bick
bundled us into the
Heller’s
vehicle and drove speedily to the hotel where he dropped
off Barb and Roger, promising to pick them up again at nine in the
morning. I decided I’d join them again, even though by now I
probably had enough information about them to thoroughly brief
Trent. Roger told me they were having a special show tomorrow to
talk specifically about their activist group, HUMP, so I didn’t
want to miss that. And besides, I hadn’t yet had a chance to look
around the expo and I hoped to pick up something to surprise
Heller, even though I knew it would be a rare day I ever surprised
him about something sexual.

Back home, I tried to call Dixie to get
the dirty on her date with Bick, but it went through to her
voicemail.
She must be working
, I thought, hopefully at an acting gig and not at her
burger-flipper night job. I checked my emails, but there were none
from her. That relieved me greatly, not sure how I’d feel stealing
a peek at a bare-arsed Bick. Or how Heller would react if he caught
me doing so.

Finding nobody at home
across the hallway, I made my way upstairs
to discover everyone except Heller on the rooftop, enjoying a
barbequed dinner Daniel had made. His cooking had really improved,
especially over the last few months. Not only was I thrilled to see
his culinary skills and confidence in the kitchen growing, I was
happy he’d found something to do that he seemed to enjoy and which
took his mind from his terrible sadness, even if only for a
while.

I ruffled Niq’s hair, earning me a swat on
the arm, waved at the twins and draped my arms around Daniel’s
neck, leaning over his shoulder to kiss him on the cheek.

“
Hello, beautiful,” I said, craning my head
to check out his dinner. I snatched a grilled prawn from his plate
and popped it in my mouth. “Yum. Perfection.”

“
Sorry, Tilly, but you’re usually home much
later these days,” he said with a sad face. “We didn’t save any
dinner for you.”

“
Sure you did,” I grinned. I grabbed a
plate for myself and walked around the table, raiding everyone’s
dinner. I pilfered a prawn and some potato salad and green salad
from every plate. The others let me good-naturedly, but when I came
to Clive, he held his hand over his place, refusing me access.
Hurriedly darting away from him, I sat next to Niq, who slipped me
some more food. I kissed his forehead while Daniel went to the
fridge and poured me a crisp, cold glass of wine.

“
Perfection,” I repeated with contentment,
and I didn’t know if I was referring to the prawns, the wine or
Heller, who’d just appeared through the doorway.

Daniel sighed with exasperation. “If I’d
known everyone would be home for once, I would have cooked
more.”

“
No matter,
I will eat later,” said Heller, his eyes resting
on me. I wondered if he planned on having me for dinner.

He stripped off his
polo shirt and his cargo pants, proceeding
to also strip off his boxers. Since we’d started sleeping together,
he’d reverted to his previous practice of going nude in the hot
tub. I suppose it was a bit hypocritical of me to protest about him
flashing his delectable man parts on the rooftop, considering all
the things I’d done with them in the bedroom . . . and the bathroom
and the lounge room and the kitchen . . . oh yeah, and on the
rooftop too. Not to mention I was the only one of us who even
seemed to notice or care when he nuded up.

“
Join me when you are finished, Matilda,”
he instructed, stepping into the bubbling hot water, sinking down
to his chin with his eyes closed.

“
Is that an order?” I
asked
, miffed at being
bossed around in such a preemptive manner.

He cracked open one eye. “If you prefer.”
He closed his eye again and smiled lazily. “Or you could consider
it a suggestion.”

“
A suggestion you’d highly
recommend?”
And yes, my
voice was a little tart.

His smile became only smugger.
“Highly.”

As a small and ineffectual protest, I took my
time eating my dinner and helping Daniel to wash up. Then I dawdled
downstairs to change into a bikini. By the time I came back up
again, the others had joined Heller in the hot tub. I tried to slip
into the water between Daniel and Niq, but Heller grabbed my hand
and yanked me over to his side to sit next to him, draping his arm
over my shoulder. I was very conscious of the press of his bare
thigh against mine.

While we chatted inconsequentially, he ran
his hand up and down my arm and played with my hair, twirling it
around his fingers. I tried to ignore him nuzzling my neck
with his lips, attempting to
carry on telling the twins about
Seductively Sextravagant
as they were quite interested.
But that became increasingly difficult when he began kissing my
neck upwards to nibble on my earlobe.

“
Heller,” I warned, a bit embarrassed.
Nobody ever felt comfortable witnessing public displays of
affection. Not even me, and I was the object of the
affection.

“
Yes, my sweet?” he murmured, trailing his
lips over to my mouth and kissing me.

“
Yuck!” declared Niq, his face scrunched in
disgust. “If you’re going to get all mushy, I’m out of here. I’d
rather be gaming any day. It’s more fun to be chopping off heads
than watching you two
kiss
.”
All delivered with a full tanker load of adolescent
scorn.

He stood, water cascading from him. And in
that careless way teenagers have, he tore off downstairs, leaving
huge puddles of water and a discarded soaked towel on the floor
behind him.

We talked for a while
longer, Heller continuing to be overly
attentive. He tugged at the bow on my bikini top. I slapped his
hand away.

“Stop it.”

“
You should go topless up here, Matilda.
You have beautiful breasts. None of us would mind.”

“I would!” I said hotly.

He chuckled softly. “You should at least try
it.”

“
That is
so
not going to happen.”

“
Good!” said Daniel. “I sure don’t want to
see your boobs. It’s bad enough seeing your butt on TV all the
time.”

I splashed water in his direction and he
splashed some back at me. We kept at it, gi
ggling, until Heller stepped in,
“Enough.”

I splashed one more time before Heller
grabbed my
wrists,
stopping me. He took advantage of my immobilisation by leaning down
and kissing me, a long, sensual embrace involving a lot of
tongue.

“
Gross,”
judged Daniel, looking away. “Get a room, you
two.”

Heller lifted his head and considered him.
“That is a very good idea, Daniel. Let’s go to my bedroom,
Matilda.”

“Heller,” I protested weakly, embarrassed
again.

He sighed. “What is the matter now?”

“You shouldn’t be so obvious. Nobody wants to
know . . . you know.”

He laughed.
“What, Matilda? That we are going to my bedroom to
have sex? I’m sure they can deduce that without any clues from
me.”

“
Heller!”

“
Is it
so wrong for others to know I desire you and want to have
sex with you?”

“
No!
. . .
Yes!
.
. . There’s no need to be so . . .” I spluttered to a stop, never
finishing the sentence or the thought, because at that moment he
arose from the water, nearly taking Daniel’s eye out with his huge
hard-on.

“
Heller!
” I screeched in shock, and if I’d thought my
embarrassment level was already high, it suddenly won an Olympic
record for pole-vaulting. Heller probably could have won some
record vaulting with his ‘pole’ too.

He swung around until
it
pointed at me.

“
Geez! Be careful with that thing, Heller,”
laughed Sid, dodging. “It’s dangerous.”

“
Come, Matilda. As you can see, I’m ready
for you.”

I could not believe that someone could be
as mortified as I was at that moment and still breathe. It just
didn’t seem scientifically or medically possible.

Heller stepped out of the hot tub.

“
Put a towel around yourself, at least,” I
squeaked.

He looked down at his hard-on and smiled.
“I don’t think that will be of much use in this
situation.”

“
Please!”

He shrugged and wrapped a clean towel around
his waist, but he was right – his hard-on just poked itself through
the edges of the towel, as if it was looking for me.

“Oh God,” I groaned to myself faintly,
dazedly stepping out of the hot tub, avoiding everyone’s eye.

He took a towel from the stack and began
to dry me down, his boner prodding my stomach each time he stepped
closer. Not sparing us a second glance, the others began to chat
again, as if nothing had happened. Heller tossed my towel over the
back of a chair and took my hand, leading me through the
door.

“
Have fun!” Daniel called out casually as
we left and the three men continued their conversation.

“
It’s not right to have a hard-on in
public, especially when you’re nude,” I complained as we walked
down the stairs to his flat.

“I wasn’t in public. I was in my own house,”
he pointed out with infuriating logic.

“
But the guys could see it!”

“
I wasn’t as though it was on purpose. It
just happened. These things do on occasion, my sweet. Daniel and
the twins understand. After all, they have personal knowledge of
the male body. They know an erection is an entirely natural
reaction of a man to a very attractive, skimpily-dressed young
lady. Especially a young lady the man knows will have sex with him
later in the evening.”

“You’re making a big assumption,” I huffed.
“Who said I’m going to have sex with you tonight?”

We reached the door to his flat, his
hard-on not having diminished in eagerness in the slightest. He
pushed me against the hall wall, his towel parting
further and his boner slipping
between my thighs. He kissed me long and hard, languidly rocking
his hips to move his hardness in and out against me.

“I say you will.”

“
What makes you so sure?” I breathed
against his mouth, my chest rapidly rising and falling. He was
rubbing me up in the most exquisite way.

He cupped my breast with his hand, running
his thumb across my bikini-clad nipple, his voice as husky as mine.
“Because I want you to sleep with me, my sweet. I need you to. The
world doesn’t feel right when I can’t have sex with
you.”

“
That’s not very romantic,” I said,
unimpressed.

He searched his brains trying to find
those magic words that men have hunted for thousands of years – the
words that make a woman say “yes”.

He tried again. “The world doesn’t feel
right when I can’t spend time with you.” He paused a beat. “Time
having sex with you, an activity I enjoy quite a lot.”

I laughed at his clumsy attempt at
‘romance’. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

“
No,” he agreed. “But I want it.” And with
a
deft couple of flicks
of his hand, he untied all the bows in my bikini set, leaving me
helpless, hastily clamping the loose scraps of material to myself
for decency’s sake, and only too aware of the security camera in
his hallway. I really had to stop wearing that bikini around
him.

“Heller!” I squealed. It sometimes felt as
though I spent my whole life saying that one word.

“
Better hide in here, Matilda. Looks as
though you’re having problems with your bikini,” he grinned evilly,
pushing me through the doorway to his flat, me shuffling, jammed up
against the wall, to keep my bikini on.