by Ace Gray
He undid his fly and slid between my knees. His lips skated along my collarbone then up, until they found their home against mine. With that kiss, I didn’t know where Bert ended and I began. With that kiss, only the taste and touch and smell of Bert existed. I didn’t know if those were his hands on my body or mine. I just knew he was going to learn every private piece of me.
His hand slid between us, fumbling first with his boxer briefs then a condom, and finally—after far too long and no time at all—with my thong. Fingertips brushed my sex a moment before he did. The length of him slid against the barely covered core of me. And then with just the twiddle of his fingers, nothing more, my panties were pushed aside and I was bare. Exposed. And desperately waiting for him. Bert teased me with the tip of his cock as I trembled.
And when he finally claimed my wanting lips, he took me.
I gasped, and my eyes shot open as he filled me. My hands flew to his shoulder blades and clung to the shape of them. I would have pulled him to me but he started moving, and I was happy to hold on for the ride.
He filled me. Over and over. But it wasn’t his dick that did me in. It was the way he cradled me. Caressed me. The way that he sipped my skin and stole my kisses all while he kept moving inside me.
I was already teetering on the edge when he pulled his lips from mine and captured my nipple again. The moves of his tongue and the soft grit of his teeth shoved me over. I couldn’t make a sound. Or I didn’t think I was able to until I realized I was calling his name in time with the waves racking my body. And digging my fingernails into him.
He tensed beneath my hands, each muscle rigid and defined as he stilled inside my quaking body. Each sound of his was a beautifully pained drip and drop from his lips. That face, stretched into the epitome of pleasure was breathtaking. And when the tsunami waves of his orgasm turned to a tiny tumult of small little laps, he collapsed onto me with a breathy, husky chuckle.
“Your body…” he trailed off as he buried his face in the curve of my neck. “Thank you.”
“Come again.” I forced an accent off The Simpsons.
He laughed just before he cringed then propped himself up on a singular outstretched arm. His eyes searched mine.
“I’d love to come again. You know that right?” He brushed his other thumb along my cheek as a patch of fog grew and shrank on his glasses.
“This time you might even get me naked.”
“I’ve never been with a girl wearing a black lace thong.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I like having a first with you.”
Embarrassment flashed across my face where his finger had been. “I think I’ll like having seconds, too,” I managed.
“Give me just a moment to recharge,” he said with a smile, just before lowering his weight back down to me, his body fitting perfectly into the curves of mine.
I smiled a different smile—one he couldn’t see—as I twisted to kiss his forehead. One that said all the things I was afraid to. One that said Bert made me happy, and that maybe, just maybe, I could give up things like revenge. That I could maybe, just maybe, let Jessie go.
But the fact of the matter remained, I wouldn’t say those things. Not even now with Bert lying against me. Right now all I could do was wait for Bert to fall asleep.
The soft cotton of Bert’s shirt brushed my upper thighs as I crept into the hallway. Danger and Diego were out partying, just as Dantè had promised, but I was still desperate to keep the floorboards quiet. Danger’s door latched shut, his computer that I’d just been on, writing out a carefully coded message, lay on the other side. I almost blew out a deep breath. Almost. But when I turned, I almost careened into a beautiful blonde ghost.
“Looking for the bathroom?” Mercy asked.
I started nodding before I answered with a small and timid, “Yes.”
She looked me up and down once, then cast her gaze behind me to Danger’s door. A few words worried on her lips, but rather than say them, she simply thinned her lips into a line.
“I heard footsteps and thought it was him.” Her same world weary gaze that had inspected me, swept down the hallway toward the entryway. The hair rose on the back of my neck at the hatred in that simple three letter word.
I didn’t know what to say. Comforting her seemed right; she seemed like she needed someone. But I couldn’t find the words. The ones that said I’m sorry for not calling, for taking Dantè’s side. I’m sorry he hurt you. But I couldn’t say that. Not now. Not even if I could find my voice. I mean, I had just broken into her roommate’s room, and though I hadn’t taken something from him, I’d stolen something. A piece of his future. All while I was supposed to be lying in the arms of the man that could be mine.
“Bathroom’s this door,” Mercy interrupted my thoughts with her soft and smiling words.
I darted for it and had to swallow the sigh in my throat as I slid in and slumped against the door behind me, securing Bert, my sin, and the only witness firmly on the other side.
Two Weeks Later…
“Don’t touch me,” I said as I shoved at Diego’s hand.
“I’ll touch you if I want,” he nipped back in my ear. “You’re mine.” His hand slid against my skin and against the hem of my tight cotton dress.
“Stop.” I kicked at him this time too, for good measure.
“Is this our photographer?” Row appeared as my savior, champagne glasses in hand, as he asked Diego beside me.
“She’s a little rusty but she’s phenomenal,” Diego answered with a slight nudge to my shoulder.
Embarrassment climbed my insides but it wasn’t what displayed on my cheeks. For some reason, shame lit me up instead. Under Row’s appraising gaze, I felt the loss of all the photo’s I hadn’t taken. All the glimpses into the intricate beauty of the big, wide world. Frozen moments not captured. How it had all stopped, how I had stopped, when Dantè went away?
“Come with me.” Row offered me champagne and ushered me through a doorway. The in-office event space was beautiful. Elegant and crisp with the company logo carved into the surf themed decor. It reminded me of the house Dantè and I were supposed to share. I smiled at the memory. “Guests will be coming in from that direction,” he pointed, “and the step and repeat is here. We do have press invited, they’ll be camped here.” He pointed to opposite sides of the entrance. “You can always catch stuff here but it’s not necessary.”
He kept talking but I found myself lost in the hand gestures that went along with his words. There was a familiarity to them, a fluidity that rushed across my skin like warm water. I didn’t notice when he stopped and turned, waiting patiently for my reply.
I didn’t have an answer—I hadn’t heard the question—so I took a moment to look at him. Really look. The fine details of him that spoke to dormant pieces of me weren’t just his movements. There was the slope of his nose, the curve of his lower lip. The way he watched me…
“Will that work?” he repeated. Something in his tone…
But then his face pinched and it all evaporated.
“I’m sorry,” I scrambled. “I missed the first part of that.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, lifting his bubbles to his lips to polish them off. When he opened his eyes again, a chill slithered up my spine.
“If you could float around, capture the candids in the crowd?” His words tipped up in irritation as he asked a second time. “Things that would work for promotional materials.”
“Of course,” I stammered.
He nodded once then receded into the room as quickly as he’d come. I watched for a moment but he disappeared amidst servers and surfers and tech geeks.
Jordan slid into my view instead. She wasn’t wearing glasses tonight, and her smile plumped her cheeks in an innocent but adorable way. It was a contrast to the discomfort that had colored her face a few days ago when I’d caught her in our hallway. I lifted my camera to snap a picture.
Snap.
The shutter of my camera captured her, twinkling,
laughing. And when Bert slipped his arm around her waist and bent down to kiss her temple, eyes closed but heart wide open, I caught the both of them in love.
I sighed.
That was the nature of photography now, the thing that kept me away. Seeing what I’d lost squarely in the lens of what I’d had. I would do this because Bert had asked, Danger had urged, and now Row was counting on me, but when it was over, I was selling the camera for good. I’d hung onto it when my heart shattered over Dantè’s freedom, but now…
Well, now maybe I needed to buy my own.
I lifted the camera and took a few more shots, incorporating the app and logo, food and wine, as the room began to fill. When I swirled toward the crowd, I recognized the hair that popped into my frame first.
“I’m working Diego,” I said as I sidestepped him and snapped another photo.
“I’m horny.” He reached his arms around me.
“Not my problem.” I tried to use my elbows to dislodge him.
“One of these days…” His lips were close enough to my ear that they brushed the sensitive skin.
“I’m paying her to do a job, I’d appreciate if you let her do it.”
I knew Row’s dark voice too well; I let it wrap around me like a blanket.
“And just who do you think you are to tell me what to do?” Diego spun and shoved his finger into Row’s chest. Danger and Bert got a glimpse and started snaking through the crowd.
“This is my place of business. This is my app relaunch.” Row puffed his chest up as he crossed his arms over it, making him roughly the size of a grizzly bear.
“Diego, stop,” Danger warned.
“If one more person gets in the way of us,” he gestured between him and I, “I will murder them.”
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to back away.
“Not even a lifetime in prison will do this time,” Diego continued, sharper this time.
My eyes went wider; I should have never stayed.
“Not cool, bro. Not cool.” Danger was trying to calm him.
I turned on my heel and shuddered as I walked away from them all.
I rummaged through my bag at the foot of the hotel bed, but I didn’t focus on the contents, just on the floral print of the cheap, scratchy comforter. I’d left the only home I’d ever really known, the only place Dantè still felt real, and all I could ask myself was what took me so long?
Eventually, I focused long enough to pull a shirt from my bag—one of Dantè’s that I hadn’t been able to wear in years without upsetting someone—and stepped over to the vanity mirror. The woman looking back was almost a stranger. Somehow staying in my safe place had gotten all warped and had fucked me up right along with it. My every action, every heartbeat had been for Dantè, when he would have hated this version of me most of all.
It was the disdain that Row had held that had driven it all home. The way his hatred for Diego poured from his eyeballs. The way his gruff voice stood up for me, in his weird and somewhat frightening way. It was the voice that should have been speaking inside me the whole time.
“Not anymore,” I said to my reflection and nodded once for good measure.
I reached behind me and unzipped my cocktail dress, sliding out of that shell and swapping it for something that felt like home. It felt like me. The slightest sent of Old Spice, pineapple Sex Wax, and him hung ever-so-faintly on the fabric, and I smiled a pure and easy smile that seemed to shove off the weight that had been hanging around my neck.
Washing my face scrubbed away some of the sludge left from Diego. And when I turned the TV to a chick flick about love letters and misunderstandings, the world seemed less woeful.
I pulled out my computer and began going through the photos from tonight. They didn’t do the beautiful event justice, but with a little editing, I figured I’d be able to satisfy Row. For the briefest moment, I was distracted by other ways that I might satisfy Row, but I shook off those filthy thoughts and refocused. Now I needed money too much to daydream.
My focus waxed and waned between my screen and the movie. And Cool Ranch Doritos from the vending machine. I had just finished swooning over a starlit movie kiss when I ate the last chip and flipped to a new photo. I glanced at my laptop then at the chip bag, deciding to lift the bag to my lips to devour the crumbs.
Something about the mundane motions blurred the world and focused it all at once. When I pulled the bag down from my face, there he was.
Dantè.
I threw the Doritos bag to the side and pulled my laptop closer.
It was a photo of faces in the crowd, but Row was in the background, unaware of being captured. He was shoving his long hair back and someone in front of him was blocking most of that bushy beard. That angry scar was barely visible. And the angle was just so…I blew up the small corner of the photo and sharpened it.
The sliver of his face remaining was so uncanny I swore.
“It could be a coincidence,” I reasoned with myself. “They could be related somehow.” But even as my words tangled with the TV, I knew.
There was one simple truth and a million complex feelings in response to it. Joy and hate. Relief and betrayal. Want and rage. Where I’d felt my footing for the first time maybe an hour ago, I was back off-kilter. Reeling even. And all because of one simple truth with a complex story behind it.
Dantè Rogue had come back to us, and he didn’t even want me to know.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said, peeking into Dantè’s office as the party was winding down. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in hours.”
“The caterers opened the fourth case of wine ten minutes after we ran out of salmon puffs, no one missed me.” He chuckled and waved me off.
“You were in here the whole time?”
“For the most part.” He sighed, and his eyes shifted to sweep the crowd. I had a feeling I knew who he was looking for.
“She left.” I shot him a small, sad smile.
“I never fully formulated a plan for Diego but I figured it would involve her. That I could kill two birds with one stone. She was always his weakness.” He stroked his beard then let his head fall into his hands. “She’s always been mine too.” His admission was quiet and mumbled but the pain in it rang clear.
I reached out to rub his shoulder. For just a minute, he let me. But then he blew out a deep breath and shook me off. He straightened up and squared his shoulders. The same cool resolve that had colored his eyes these last few months slid back into place.
“I had a chance to get down the hall too.” He tried to pull his wicked smile into place and somehow it just wouldn’t go. I held in my own sigh and decided to ignore that all the life was sucked out of the room.
“Hand it over.” I held out my palm and waited for the little device that he had told me about the night before. The one that held a fake list I’d be uploading to some crazy computer safety deposit box, for lack of a better term.
“You remember what to do?” he asked, and I shot him a look. “Well, I dunno, you’ve obviously had a little bit of booze tonight if you’re all excited to play Jane Bond.”
“I’m ready to go home. With Bert.” She arched her eyebrows.
“Slut,” he teased, still half-hearted.
“I think I might love him.” I wished I had the words back as soon as I said them; they were too close to his admission about Mercy. I couldn’t look him in the face when I was rubbing his in it.
Dantè rose slowly from his chair and walked deliberately to where I was standing. He notched his finger beneath my chin and lifted my eyes to meet his.
“He doesn’t deserve you.” He cracked his whisker wiggling smile. “No one ever will.”
“But?” I could hear it inherent in his voice.
“But I’m glad he’s gonna try.” He wrapped his arms around me, and there was something sorrowful and heavy to his hold. “Let him try, Max,” he whispered.
“Are you saying good—”
“There you ar
e!” Rousse interrupted. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Dantè dropped his hands from me. “Let’s do this.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, and for some reason panic churned in my stomach.
“There are some races tonight.”
I knew that tone. It made my stomach churn all the more wildly. They were going to the race track, and Dantè wasn’t completely sure he was coming back.
“Come here.” Bert patted his chest, and I turned and smiled before crawling back into bed with him. “How can you be troubled after that.” He smoothed out the creases of my brow as I settled against his body, still sticky with the sweat from our labors.
“I’m not.” I forced something that resembled a genuine smile onto my face and burrowed deeper into the crook of his shoulder. I had to shift my head because I couldn’t hear the front door over the thunder of his heart.
“If you say so.” He twisted up onto his elbow, leaving me flat to the pillow. “But…I’m thinking…” he dragged his words out then attacked, tickling me, “thatIonlywannamakeyousmile.” His words ran together as he started laughing, and I started shoving, a mess of wild giggles.
His hands roamed my body with that gropey mix of pain and pleasure. I pushed against him, my laughter bubbling up to meet his until we were nothing but a wild tumult of limbs. Before I knew it, he had me pinned, my wrists to my pillow, my hips beneath his. I yanked a few times until he pressed his chest against mine.
“That’s better.” He was breathless as he bent down to kiss me.
I was a slave to this, to him, and I surrendered to the shackles of his kiss. My body bowed from the bed to mesh against his, my fight subsided. I forgot all about Dantè as Bert nudged his semi against my thigh.
