by Raquel Belle
“Cool,” she said, then the conversation shifted and flowed naturally. I noticed that Beth was a lot more relaxed and it wasn’t wine induced because she had water in her glass. I loved that she was cool about me being around the people in her life.
Chapter Thirty-One
Beth
Anthony practically carried me to the car—I was that tired. He’d insisted on staying after to help clean up, and then the few of us left at my mom’s house decided on a post-cleanup drinking game and well, it was three a.m. and I just wanted a soft bed and Anthony.
“That was really fun. The most fun I’ve ever had at a Thanksgiving. What’s Christmas like for you guys?” Anthony asked. He was wired. Ma had pumped him full of coffee and water to get him to sober up before she let us get back on the road. I reached over and stroked the hair around his ear. He turned his head to kiss my palm.
“Christmas is my family and I in our pajamas, watching basketball, and being lazy, basically. Christmas Eve is another story though,” I said. “What’s it like for you?” Anthony shrugged, and a pang of sadness hit me. It sucked that he wasn’t closer with his family, and that he couldn’t be.
“Then you’ll spend Christmas with us, too,” I said.
Anthony held my hand tight and he took a deep breath. “Do you think I passed the test with your friends and everyone?”
“I think so. Cara had no complaints, and you somehow convinced my brother to like you, so you did alright,” I said.
Anthony nodded, smiling triumphantly as he turned the corner. “Are we headed to my place or yours? Is Huevos okay?”
“He’s good for another night,” I said. I’d set the automatic feeder, and he had enough water to last him until the morning.
“Good,” Anthony said. He smirked at me, with a devilish look in his eyes, and I woke up a little. My body was already warm from the alcohol, and it took nothing at all to respond to that look.
As soon as we got through the door of his apartment, Anthony picked me up and pressed me against him. His erection was already firm, as it pushed through my jeans and against my throbbing clit. He kissed me hungrily as his tongue swept against mine and he bit my bottom lip. Thrills of pleasure had my pussy soaking in mere seconds as he kissed me and nibbled on the sensitive skin of my neck. He carried me to his bedroom, where we tumbled onto the floor. I straddled him, and he pulled my sweater off over my head, taking my bra off with it. He massaged my breasts and nibbled and sucked on my nipples.
I moaned and ground my hips against his, rubbing my aching cunt against the bulge of his cock. “Anthony, I don’t want to wait.”
“I got you,” he said, his voice breathy. He pulled off my jeans and panties then quickly pulled his clothes off and wrapped my legs around his hips. He rubbed his cock between the slick folds of my pussy. I moaned, and he slowly pushed into me, and then it was just us and nothing else. He held my hands above my head and his hips swung back and forth. Already, he knew what I went crazy for. He knew the right angles to stroke and how to hold me.
My back arched as my pussy clenched around his hard cock. Already, I felt the orgasm coming, and I knew that it wouldn’t come down unless he stopped moving.
“I know what you like, baby,” he whispered in my ear. He kissed my neck and shoulders, and brushed his lips over mine, constantly kissing me as my body grew weaker and weaker with pleasure.
“Fuck, Anthony, I’m gonna cum,” I said.
He moaned in my ear, as my pussy clenched tight around him and didn’t let go. He cursed, and his strokes slowed down. He ground his hips and lowered onto me, as his cock reached deep inside. “Fuck!” I cried. My body trembled under his, and my pussy milked his cock, as the orgasm rushed through me. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and Anthony kissed me deeply.
He stilled his motion, and I felt that he’d already emptied inside me. For a while, we just laid there as Anthony caressed my breasts, trailing down to my hips, and we caught our breath together. I felt oddly awake for just being nearly comatose on the ride over.
“Shower?” Anthony finally said, cutting the comfortable silence.
“Yeah,” I said. He pulled out of me, and then on loose limbs, we walked to the shower. We pretty much washed each other. It was the most intimate I’d ever been with anyone.
“Why are you so quiet?” Anthony said, as we dried off.
“I um…” I looked up at him. He cupped my face, so that I couldn’t look away like I usually did when I was shy. I felt like I was ready…so I said, “I love you too.”
Anthony started to smile but then it fell and his jaw clenched. “Oh…”
“What?” I said, my stomach turned sour as nerves settled there.
“I have to be honest…” He paused and stepped back from me. “I have to tell you something, Beth.”
“What is it? You don’t have a wife and kids do you?” I said, trying to make a joke, though I desperately hoped I wasn’t right. Thankfully his lips turned up with a smile before it disappeared again.
“No, nothing like that, I promise,” he said. “It has to do with the Common Templars.” His voice broke on the last word. I blinked at him, incredulous. What could he be so nervous to tell me about regarding that stupid secret society? Especially right after I told him that I loved him…as we stood naked in front of each other. I shook my head. “Let me…let me get dressed first.”
“Wait, no,” he said and grabbed my hands. “Nathan called me…”
“Anthony, I don’t want to talk about Nathan while I’m standing naked in the bathroom with you,” I snapped and pulled away from him. My chest felt hot, and my stomach felt worse. I walked into the closet for my overnight bag and put on my pajamas. My head started to throb, and I sat on the ground to try and keep my stomach still. All that alcohol from before was coming back to get me…I just knew it.
“Babe,” Anthony said, as he stepped into the closet and gathered me from the floor.
“I don’t feel so good,” I said.
He took me to the bathroom and sat with me in front of the toilet, as the contents of my stomach emptied into the toilet.
***
My head was pounding when I woke up, and I felt worse than I had while puking the night before. I shouldn’t have mixed wines and beer, that was for sure. Also, Anthony shouldn’t have ruined my mood. I laid flat on my back in bed, waiting for the throbbing to subside, as the smell of bacon and eggs drifted into the room.
“Babe?” Anthony whispered and tip-toed into the room. My head throbbed even more, but I sighed and slowly sat up. His eyes grew wide. “How’re you feeling? Here’s some Aleve.” He handed me a couple of pills and a glass of orange juice. I couldn’t even look at him though. I took the medicine and drank half the glass of orange juice. “There’s food in the kitchen, when you’re ready.”
“Okay,” I said. He backed away, only to the door though, and waited for me to get up. Slowly, I followed him to the kitchen, just wanting to get it over with and hear whatever he had to tell me. My eyes pricked with tears, both from how horribly I felt physically, and the dread of what we potentially had to talk about. “So, what is it, Anthony?”
“You should eat something. It’ll help with the hangover,” he said. He led me into the dining room, and we sat, silently.
“Anthony…”
“Beth, just humor me, please,” he said and gestured to the plate. “You’re pale.”
I picked up a piece of bacon and took a bite, then set it back down. “Fucking tell me. Just get it over with. I can’t eat like this.” I sat back and stared at his stupid face.
Anthony wiped his hands on his napkin and curled it around his fingers. “Nathan called me after he’d called you. He told me that there was another meeting that I could go to as a Potential. He wanted to recruit me. It was a normal meeting with men and women, and I went, and I didn’t tell you, but I learned a lot of valuable information there and…” Anthony stopped short and sighed heavily. He looked down at his plate like a
kid in trouble.
“And when was this?” I said.
“A couple weeks ago.”
I shook my head. I didn’t care that he’d gone to another meeting with Nathan. Honestly, I didn’t. What I cared about was that he’d hidden it from me for so long then decided to tell me at the most intimate moment possible. I looked at my hands. “I don’t understand, what—”
“It was a lapse in judgment on my part. Nathan called and told me about your phone call with him earlier, but you never told me about that, so I assumed—”
“You don’t trust me?” I said, setting off my migraine again. “I told you about the call, and it was nothing. A follow up, fucking nothing, Anthony!”
“I know…”
“And you still kept that meeting from me?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react, and I’d already told him that I would go. I didn’t want to mess anything up, Beth.”
My eyes filled with tears. I felt horrible, and I hated that I was crying because under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t be. “Please take me home.”
“Babe…”
I held my hand up. “Don’t fucking patronize me. You know what? Never mind, I’ll call a cab.” I got up and strode into the bedroom to pack up my stuff, aware that Anthony was following me. He said nothing because there was nothing to say. All of it was stupid.
“I couldn’t keep it in anymore last night…that’s why I had to tell you, Beth. I want to be honest with you, okay?”
God, he was still keeping his voice down because of my hangover…and it was crap like that…because that made me feel worse. Because I wasn’t sure if he really cared about me or not anymore. “Whatever, honestly…”
“Beth…” Anthony said, as he put his hand on my waist to try and make me face him.
I slapped his hand away and finished grabbing my stuff. “I need to go.”
“Fine, I’ll drive you,” he said, his tone clipped. We didn’t speak in the elevator, on the way to the car or on the drive. He didn’t say anything until he pulled up outside of my building. “Can we talk about this? Please?”
“I can’t talk right now, Anthony. My head feels like it’s about to explode, and you’re making it fucking worse. Goodbye.”
I got out of the car and hurried inside to Huevos. I changed and grabbed four bottles of water then sat in front of the TV and tried to ignore the pain burning in my chest so that the migraine would subside. That Anthony had lied to me was imprinted in my mind. I’d been disappointed by guys before, but somehow this felt different. I had hoped that Anthony would be different, but there I was again, sitting on the floor, fighting back tears, and considering just going for girls in the future.
***
The e-mail stared back at me, just as I stared at it. I didn’t want to hit send, but I needed more time for the feature. I wanted to change it completely, so it wouldn’t be based on the idea Anthony had given me in the beginning. Carl was usually understanding when other people asked for more time, but I never did, and I’d come to believe that he liked that about me. I needed another interview with Jonathan and more time to completely rewrite the whole piece. It was going to be damaging for me one way or another. I had a feeling that I’d get a lot of column assignments for the next few months.
“Fucking, fuck, fuck…” I hit send and slammed my laptop shut. Huevos meowed in the chair next to me, as he looked up, curiously.
“Be honest with me, Eggs, if you were human, would you lie to women just to get into bed with them?”
He meowed, shook his coat, then hopped off of the chair to pad away. “Does that mean no?” I called. He jogged into my bedroom, covering his ass, I was sure. “All the fucking same. He better be glad he’s my son.”
I wanted to talk to someone, but I didn’t want to at the same time. Anthony had just met all the people I confided in. I didn’t want to go back to any of them upset and giving them the same sob story I always gave when it didn’t work out with a guy. Instead, I grabbed my purse, shrugged on a coat, and stepped into my boots. I was going to walk around, maybe get coffee, and try to clear my head on my own.
I walked through the gate and nearly bumped into some guy’s broad back. He turned around. It was Anthony, holding two coffees.
“You bumped into me this time,” he said with a nervous laugh.
“What do you mean?” I asked, guarded.
“Remember when I bumped into you at the gala?” He pulled his hood down and handed me the least spilled coffee.
“Yeah, you got booze on my dress,” I said.
“Right…ah, can we please talk?”
I sighed. “No, I really can’t right now. I don’t have it in me, and I’m still recovering from my hangover.”
“When will you be up to it then?” he said.
“I don’t know, Anthony, maybe when I feel normal again,” I said, getting annoyed.
He clenched his jaw and glanced down the sidewalk. “Beth, I’m sorry.”
“Please…I said I don’t want to talk right now.”
“But, Beth it’s not even really that big of a deal.”
I shook my head. I felt like smacking him, again. “Anthony, you’re only going to make things worse right now, so we’ll talk when I’m fucking ready!”
He held his hands up in surrender and exhaled a frustrated sigh. “Fine.”
And just like that, he walked away. I turned my back on him and dropped the coffee in the first garbage bin that I passed. I knew that I’d been mean to him but by that point I was just so tired of all the bullshit in my life. Every relationship always went great…until it didn’t. I’d been stupid enough to say ‘I love you’ and that’s what hurt the most. I was considering a new nickname for myself…Bad Luck Beth. Maybe I should have listened to my head instead of my heart…once an asshole, always an asshole. The girls had warned me after all. And I’d also made the incredibly stupid mistake of introducing Anthony to everyone I knew. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I was fully ready to ignore the call. I glanced at the screen and saw that it was Carl calling me.
I answered. “Hey…it’s vacation still, so I didn’t think you’d be checking e-mails.”
“That’s a myth—I always check e-mails,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Well…Carl, are you sitting down?” I asked. I figured to just come clean, otherwise I’d get fired.
“I am, but tell you what, I’m in the city at Ben’s Coffee on Madison, can you meet me?”
“How long will you be there?”
“All morning.”
“Alright, I’m on the way,” I said and hung up. I went over how much I’d tell him on the train ride over. Of course, I was going to leave out all the gory details. But I’d tell him about the situation I found myself in with the first Common Templar meeting and see what he would make of it.
Carl sat at a table covered in work. I knew for a fact that if the building was open, he’d be in his office right now, but it was the day after Thanksgiving.
“How are you?” Carl said. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, boss. You look great too,” I said, as I took off my coat. “Let me grab something to drink.” I stood in line, ordered my coffee, then sat down with him.
“Come on, fill me in,” he said and closed his notebook. He folded his fingers under his chin and waited. I told him about Anthony and I having to share a source and information. The picture of shock on his face was painful. My palms got sweaty as I spoke, and I silently prayed not to lose my job. When I was finished, Carl stared at me silently for a long time.
“Why didn’t you call me to go to the meeting for you?” He asked.
My brain literally blanked, and my mouth opened and closed, floundering.
“I didn’t know that you met the criteria,” I said.
“You should have asked, Beth, then you wouldn’t be in this mess. Granted, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because you had to act fast.” The tiniest bit of relief cooled my chest a litt
le. “It’s a good call to rework your feature though. You’ll have to think long and hard about a good way to get everything in there, and we can get you another interview with Jonathan, but you’ll have to set it up yourself. Our intern is out of state until Tuesday.”
“That’s fine. I can do that,” I said, exhaling in relief.
“I’ll give you the extension, but…Beth, if The Tribune is working an identical feature… This might really hurt the paper,” he said.
The blood drained out of my face, but I kept it together. “I realize that, and I’m…I mean, I feel fucking terrible that I got us into this mess.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. Take another week. That’s the longest extension I can get for you. It’ll put us at the last Broadway showing of the play, so some interest will still be there for the feature at least. But no later than a week, Beth. I want to see a rough draft by the old deadline. By rough I mean one polish away from final.”
“I can do that,” I said.
“Alright, and you call me if you run into any more trouble,” he said. “I want to be in the loop.”
I nodded, and he stood up at the same time I did. “Thanks for understanding, Carl, and I’m sorry it had to come to this.”
“Just focus on the story and make it good,” he said. We hugged, and he patted me on the back before sending me on my way. I didn’t exhale until I left the coffee shop. That could’ve gone a lot worse.
My pits were sweating when I stepped into the cold and made my way back towards the subway. One thing I would never do again—and shouldn’t have done in the first place—was let a big dick and a five o’clock shadow interfere with my career.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Anthony
I’d glanced over my shoulder just in time to watch Beth toss the coffee I gave her. That wasn’t a good fucking sign. I shook my head and practically jogged back to my car, fuming. I wasn’t angry at her. I was angry at myself. She’d told me that she had a bad track record with men, and I knew that my chances with her were slim because of her history…and…in the end, I fucking blew it. Part of me wanted to find out the names and addresses of everyone who’d ever hurt her, so that I could go and beat the crap out of them.
