STUFFED (The Slate Brothers 2)

I’m undone.

It feels like my nerves are fireworks, exploding one after another in a dazzling show that illuminates my body. I’m moaning, I know, but the sound seems far away. My fingers freeze over my clit, unable to continue their work, and my head tosses to the side as I come harder, longer, than ever before. Carson speaks to me, but I can’t understand his words— though hearing his voice as I come makes it all the more powerful. I’m left panting and exhausted a few moments later; only then do Carson’s words begin to make sense again.

“Good. Very good, sweetheart. Just breathe,” he murmurs into the phone, and somehow, it feels like he’s holding me, like he’s stroking my hair. It’s shocking, even, when I open my eyes and am reminded that I’m entirely alone.

“Carson,” I say weakly, blushing, feeling vulnerable for what I just did, for the sounds I just made, for the things I just thought. This is so not like me.

“Yes?” he asks.

“That was…I just…I’ve never done something like this before, and…”

“And you liked it,” Carson finishes for me. “Don’t be embarrassed. I liked it too.” There’s a smile to the edge of his words, and it alleviates a little of my fear. Carson takes a long breath, then says, “I have practice tomorrow. You should come watch. For the story, I mean.”

“The story? Oh— yeah. Okay.”

“You do still want to write the story, don’t you?” Carson asks.

“Yeah. Of course. That’d be great,” I say, unsure how I’m supposed to look at Carson, now, and somehow not think about what’s just happened between us. About how alive he just made me feel, all over a phone line. About how it’s totally, completely inappropriate that I’m writing an article about someone who just told me exactly how to touch myself.

And how I absolutely, totally loved it.

5

“I’m going to a team practice later today. He agreed to talk to me,” I explain to Devin in the Blaze newsroom the next morning.

“Score,” Devin says, grinning. Devin is handsome. Not hot, not sexy, but handsome, in a very expensive kind of way. Bright white teeth, neat hair, a square jaw, and clothes just a little nicer than a junior college student should be able to afford. His family has money, and even though it’s not something Devin brags about out loud, it’s something that his entire existence sort of brags about.

But something about his entitled attitude always leaves me feeling slightly squeamish, like he’s tainting me with his very presence. “I don’t know if anything’s going to come of it,” I remind him, hoping to slightly temper Devin’s ever growing expectations about the article.

“I made you a list of topics I’d like you to focus on. Just try to steer him into this sort of stuff, okay? Don’t blow it by asking outright,” Devin goes on, and hands me a sticky note. It’s a list short enough that I definitely didn’t need it written down, but it doesn’t surprise me that Devin did. It reads:

-Future football plans

-Frustrations with the team

-HIS FATHER HIS FATHER HIS FATHER

“I get the impression you want me to dig for information about his father,” I say drily. Devin is walking briskly across the newsroom, weaving through the grid of desks toward a printer. It’s assumed I’ll follow him, and I do.

“Not everyone cares about football. You, for example, don’t care about football. But everyone wants to know if Dennis Slate is a killer or not. Carson has to know the real story there— he’s the one who provided his dad an alibi, you know.”

“Okay, but his dad seems really off-limits. He said that’s why he doesn’t talk to reporters— because they all start digging into his father,” I say carefully, raising my voice to be heard over the screeching of the printer.

Devin’s eyes flick to mine briefly, too busy to hold contact for more than a single second. “Well, then you’ll have to wait to have father-related conversations till the end. Till he’s really comfortable with you. Blow it too early and you won’t have a story at all.”

“The Blaze won’t have a story at all,” I say cautiously.

Devin laughs, and it isn’t a welcome sound. “Yeah, yeah— but this is all about you, Astrid. Well, you and me. You’ll be the reporter that got an amazing story, and I’ll be the editor who ran the thing. Dennis Slate’s trial is coming up, and if we do this right, we can release the story right when the hype is insane, and ride it to amazing journalism careers.”

We’re moving again, power-walking back to Devin’s office. “Right. Yeah, okay. What about my other assignments, though?” I ask.

“I handed them out to other reporters,” he says, walking around his desk and pausing to give me a serious look. “From this point on, you’re focused on Carson Slate 24-7, got it?”