by Virna DePaul
I sit back, positioned between her legs, and admire her beauty. I count her breaths and trace lines between every freckle on her stomach and study the curve of her waist into her hip and memorize the way one strand of hair slips over her eye. I tuck it behind her ear as I push slowly inside of her. I see her arms tug slightly at the tie, but I still myself when I’m completely engulfed and she, too, stills.
Even though she’s the one tied up, she has all the control. She’s undone me in ways I never imagined were possible. I’m naked before her, exposed and vulnerable, and everything is in her hands. I’ve given too much, and I know it, but it’s too late. She owns me and I am utterly helpless. I want to tell her all of this, but the idea of hearing those words fall from my lips scares the hell out of me. So, instead, I lean over and press my lips to hers.
I demand nothing from her even as I’m buried inside of her. I let her lips take the lead. I relent when her head lifts up to press against mine. Her tongue explores mine, hot and needy, and I merely follow. She moans into my lips and at that sweet, sweet sound I can no longer stay still.
Our chests rub together as I pull out and thrust into her with the full strength of my body. Sweat soon gathers between us and everything is wet and hot and needy: my cock in her tight walls, our lips and tongue and saliva, her nipples as my chest ruts against them. We’ve never fucked this close together. I can feel her everywhere. Everywhere.
She nips at my bottom lip as I feel myself getting close. We haven’t said a word but I can feel it all building to something that is different from before and it scares me. I feel a connection to her that goes past my skin against hers. And I want to tell her, but I don’t. I can’t.
So I fuck her and she screams against my lips when she comes and as her walls tighten around me and her arms quiver in her bonds and her legs wrap around me to squeeze my ass I scream against hers.
I pull out of her and reach up for the knots of my tie holding up her hands. I ease her arms down gently. The second I roll over and lay down next to her she curls up tight next to me, reconnecting my body with hers. She seems to fit into my side as if a puzzle piece. I wrap my arm around her hot shoulders and breathe in the scent of her hair and close my eyes.
I didn’t need confirmation of how I feel about her. About what I want from her.
I want all of her. Everything.
And to get that, I’m going to have to take a risk. I have to do it. I have to.
“Hey, Jenna?”
She stirs against my chest and lifts her head to smile at me with sleepy, contented eyes.
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to tell you about my plan.”
“Your plan?” she asks, raising an eyebrow suggestively. “Are we robbing a bank, Lee?”
I’d do anything with you. I almost said it. I almost did.
“My plan for how to get my investors back on board.”
She perks ups, and I see her throw on her badass Jenna-lawyer face. Yes, it’s slightly frightening. But I can do this. “I’ve already discussed it with them actually,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, I told them about it and we went through some ideas and plans and they really like what we decided on.”
She claps her hands and squirms out of the cocoon of my arm to sit up and face me. I miss the heat of her skin, but I like when she lays stomach down on my chest and taps her fingers along my pecs. I knot my fingers together at the small of her back and remind myself not to get distracted by her breasts pressed against me and her ass wiggling in the air. I tell myself to focus as she continues, “Wow, Lee. Well, that’s great. So, they’re going to still fund you? They’re back on board even after the blog?”
“Yep, they’re back in if the plan goes well.”
“Lee, I’m so happy for you.” She smiles at me and I almost lose all my resolve.
“Yeah, it’s great,” I agree nervously.
“So…” she says.
Here we go. The hammer is about to drop.
“What’s this great, fantastic, day-saving plan?”
“We, I mean me and the investors, plan to invite the blogger to a redo dinner.”
I’m ready for her to tell me it’s a horrible, stupid idea and throw something at me. Then, when I ask why she’s so upset, she’ll have to reveal herself. I’m also ready for her to admit she was behind the blog and start crying. I’m ready for anything, but Jenna just nods.
Not what I expected.
“We’ll build up hype for it on social media to get some good press,” I manage to get out.
She keeps nodding.
I keep waiting for her to crack. To tell me the blogger is her.
I thought I’d cornered her. I’d pushed her out from behind that screen. I’d torn off the mask she holds onto so tightly. But she just keeps listening intently and calmly, playing with the hair on my chest casually, as I outline the plan.
“I’m kind of surprised,” I say.
Her mask reveals nothing but nonchalant chill. It’s infuriating.
“Why’s that?” she asks.
“Well, yesterday when I mentioned the idea you immediately shot it down.”
“So?”
“You said it was a terrible idea.”
“Yeah.”
“You said it wouldn’t work.”
“Emhmm.”
“And now, what, you think it’s good?”
“I know it seems impossible to you, Lee. But I can be wrong every once in a while.”
I squint my eyes at her. She laughs.
“Hey, if your investors are on board, that’s all that matters. Who cares what I think?”
She isn’t going to crack. Well, I’m not going to crack, either. I just need more leverage. I’m going to push this as far as I need to to get Jenna to admit she is the blogger, and, more importantly, that she feels something for me.
She can play this game, and so can I.
I’m going through with the plan to invite the blogger for a redo dinner. I’m going to blast it over social media to the point where the blogger can’t say no. To the point where Jenna can’t say no. I’ll build up so much hype around it that she’ll just have to come.
I smile at her. “Well, then great,” I say. “That’s what we’ll do then.”
“Great,” she says.
“Great.”
Jenna reaches across to her bed side table where the bottle of champagne sits.
“To your most excellent plan,” she says and takes a sip from the bottle before handing it to me.
I take it from her. Oh, it’s on, Jenna Harrison. It’s on. “To my most excellent plan.”
15
Jenna
If the CIA ever needs another covert operative, I now have two extensive weeks of living a double life on the internet to put down as experience for my resume.
No matter. It all ends tonight.
Tonight is the night of the dinner Lee set up with the blogger. He's supposed to get back into good standing with his investors and meet the woman who opened up to him, shared with him, revealed more to him, than I ever could.
Tonight is the night.
And yet, here I am, sitting on my couch in my apartment wearing nothing but a towel and fresh out of a shower. I’ve got sweatpants laid out on one side of the coffee table and a dress laid out on the other side. My makeup bag is set up on my right, with a bag of Cheetos ready to go on the left side.
A thousand times, I’ve told myself I'm going to go. I've also told myself a thousand times there’s no fucking way in hell I’m going. I've picked up the mascara and thrown it back down. curled my hair and then dragged my fingers through it and messed it up and then fixed it again and then laid out on the floor and moaned.
It's 6:30 now. The dinner is set for 8:00.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ever since Lee told me his idea to invite the blogger to a redo dinner, everything in my life has gone on the back burner in favor of dealing with this.
Any day now, I expect to
get fired from the law firm. My boss says I'm 'distracted' and 'unfocused’, which isn't true at all. Well, unless he means 'distracted' and 'unfocused' on court cases and briefs and gathering affidavits. Oh, that's probably what he means, isn't it?
Shit.
I've gotten myself into quite the spot, if I'm being honest.
When Lee told me his plan, my heart dropped, but I wasn't really in a position to tell him it was a bad idea. Especially after he told me that he spoke to his investors and they were back on board because of it. How could I disagree with that?
I'm also weirdly thrilled. Lee didn't deserve the fallout with his investors because of one drunken girl’s midnight postings. I had to make things right even if I didn't have the nerve to tell him myself, especially after things grew ... complicated. Having a solution to a problem I created is a load off my shoulders.
It's just the specifics of that solution that keep me up at night.
Why couldn't it have been something else, anything else?
I would have spent weeks working endlessly on market analysis, sales numbers, or competitor studies. I would have killed a whole forest of trees to put together binder after binder of pages. All so I didn’t have to deal with this … public exposure.
It's 7:00 now. We're nearing critical time. If I'm going to be brave and leap and go, I need to start getting ready now. Between the hair and the make up and the clothes and the shoes and ordering the cab and the drive, I need to start.
I tried everything I could think of to avoid this redo dinner. I think I worked harder on this than anything else in my entire life.
Oh, the things I tried. I’ve bookmarked plenty of websites on how to book a flight under a different name. If the blogger suddenly up and moved to Vienna, a redo dinner just wouldn't be possible. It would be so sad, but, well, that's life. I may have even talked with a realtor about condos in different cities around the world, the further the better.
At work, Human Resources probably thinks I'm having a mental breakdown after hounding them about available positions in other sister firms abroad. But then I realized that if I disappeared at the same time that the blogger did it may seem slightly suspicious. So that plan was out the window.
Then I turned down the invite through my blog, stating that I prefer to keep my anonymity. But Lee solved that, too. He'd close down the restaurant. He'd keep all the lights off save for the fire fixtures. Oh, and he suggested we wear masks. Trust me, I had several wild dreams involving Lee and I in masks surround by candlelight, ripping off all of his clothes and just leaving the mask on ...
I resist the urge to close my eyes and fall into that fantasy and instead warily peek over at the clock.
7:15.
If I put on makeup and did my hair, I'd be giving myself more time before I had to decide. Because if I don't start getting ready now, I'm not going. But if I was ready, I could go or I could just huddle under the covers and deal with the fallout tomorrow. So, putting on foundation right now is not me saying I'm going. I may be going. Or I may not.
Shit, I need a drink.
If I go, I'm giving up control. Once I reveal who I am, everything is in Lee's hands. He may laugh at me for not telling him and for being typical Jenna overthinking things. He may wrap me in his arms and kiss me and tell me he shared something special with the blogger and he's so glad it's me.
Or he may not. He may see what I did as a betrayal. And he may see my ensuing silence as further proof of my betrayal. He may point one finger toward the door and say not a single word, but I’ll know exactly what he’s thinking.
Get out.
Get out of my restaurant.
Get out of my life.
I pause with my blush brush filled with a bright, cheerful pink and hesitate before I swipe it across my cheek. My life without Lee? A month ago, before my birthday, I think I could have handled that. I basically was handling that. He did his things with models and flashing cameras and fake smiles and I did my thing with the same work every day and the same tired look and the same mask behind the blog. Our paths had diverged, and it was only a lot of wine and a lot of pent-up frustration that crashed us back together.
But after everything that’s happened these last few weeks, I don’t think I can handle a life without Lee. It’s not just the sex. It’s the person I want to be when I’m around him. The person he makes me want to be. I want to make crepes without a recipe and try fruity pebbles on bacon and close my eyes and leap.
Going to the dinner may give me everything I always wanted. Or it may destroy, forever and irreparably, everything I’ve built on the long path towards what I always wanted.
I watch 7:30 flash across the clock, and I’m still staring at the door which leads to the hall which leads to the elevator which leads to the lobby which leads to the road which leads to Lee. I’m still staring and holding my blush brush. It’s just another mask. Why can’t I put it on?
7:45. If I left now, the only way to get there on time would be if traffic were perfect. Only if every light turned green and every tourist near Times Square paid attention to the God-damn flashing red hand on the crosswalks. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m still sitting and still staring.
8:00. Lee is not worried at this point. Fifteen minutes late in New York is fifteen minutes early. I could still go. I’ll just add an apology for being late to all the other apologies. What’s one more, in the grand scheme of things? Lee is probably dipping his finger into a new sauce as he sings to himself. He’ll then add some random ingredient no one but Lee would think of. But it would complete the dish, elevating it from amazing to indescribable.
The thought of Lee in his kitchen, leaning over a hot skillet or sizzling pans or steaming pots, makes me happy. At least one positive thing has come from this mess.
8:15. Lee’s probably adjusting the garnish on the appetizer just the tiniest amount to make sure it’s extra perfect. I can practically see him clap his hands together and kiss his fingers together like some Italian chef cartoon. I wonder what he’s wearing. A suit? A tuxedo? I glance at the midnight blue gown covered in delicate sequins that’s draped over the coffee table. It dips down low in the back, the material elegantly draped. I even purchased a mask to go along with it. Silver feathers. I wonder what Lee would say about it and about me.
But I’m still holding the blush brush and I’m still holding onto the mask. Not the feathered one. My own.
It’s 8:30. Then 8:45.
Forty-five minutes. That’s when Lee would start to worry. He’d keep ducking his head out of the kitchen, looking around the grand dining room lit only by the fire from the gorgeous sculptures. He’d double-check his phone, even though he just looked at it. Things will start to run through his mind. Did something happen? Is the blogger still coming? Did I do something?
9:00. I flop over on the couch and groan. I’m the worst. I’m just the fucking worst. I kick my feet in frustration and pound my fists like a little kid.
Too fidgety to sit still, I hop up and pace back and forth, biting my lip. I could call him. I could call the restaurant and still make this right. I could call Lee and tell him I know why the blogger didn’t come. But, I’m not going to. I know I’m not going to.
9:15. By now, Lee knows. There’s no way he doesn’t know that the blogger isn’t coming. Is he worried about the implications for his investors? Is he wondering what happened? Is he vowing to never message the blogger ever again?
My stomach feels so tight. I am the fucking worst.
9:30. Lee is probably dumping the food into the trash can. Such a shame. I bet the dinner was fantastic. Anytime he puts his heart into something, it’s always fantastic. I bet he’s shutting off the lights, putting out the fires, and –
My phone rings somewhere in the apartment, making me jump. I know it isn’t my work phone, because that ringtone is Work Bitch by Britney Spears. Lee got a hold of it after our adventures on my desk. I still have to figure out how to change it …
No, it’s
my personal phone, and I search for it, mostly because I’m curious as to who it could be. When I find the phone, I’m both surprised and not surprised whose name is flashing across the screen.
It’s Lee.
I almost don’t answer, assuming it’s some butt dial on his subway ride home from the restaurant, but just after the fifth ring, I answer.
“Um, hello?”
“Jenna?”
“Lee?” I don’t hear the sound of the subway.
“The blogger didn’t show.”
I summon whatever I can remember from a drama class I took back in high school.
“Oh, man. No way.”
“Yeah,” he sighs.
“Do you want to, like, come over or something?”
“You’re not busy tonight?”
I stare at the mess of my couch. “Not really.”
“Well, I think I have a better idea.”
“Yeah ….?”
“I have all this food cooked here at the restaurant. And well… you could come help me eat it.”
“Right now? I’m not exactly fit to go out.” I look down at my sweatpants and catch a glimpse of my half-done face in the window.
“Jenna, you’re beautiful. Just come.”
What’s another bad decision in a string of very bad decisions?
“See you in thirty.”
16
Lee
I hang up with Jenna and commence preparing our food. In the next thirty minutes, I still have a lot of cooking to do. Final touches, garnishes. Because the dinner I’d cooked for “the blogger” was ruined, and I wasn’t going to serve Jenna anything but a delicious meal, even if she had stood me up yet again.
Truth was, I’d been prepared for it.
I’d known by the blogger’s response to my dinner invitation. I’d expected Jenna to make an excuse to get out of it. Instead, her response had been: Of course.
Of course? What the fuck?
I messaged her and asked, Are you serious? You're going to come?
Sure. Sounds like fun.
Sounds like fun?
Sounds like fucking fun?
