by Kira Blakely
I twisted her sideways and ground her face into The Fundamentals of Law while she moaned my name. It felt like it was one hundred degrees in this office. Her breath made fog on the glossy cover of that stupid book, and I bit the back of her neck and thrust deep inside her perfect pussy. Her knees quivered and we sank together to the floor.
My hands roved her ass and gave one cheek a hard, appreciative smack, relishing the way it rolled back and forth for me. Now that was a woman. I sank into her hips from behind and roared and lost my mind all over again, charging into her until she squirted on me. Her dress, which was soaked in sweat and cum in the skirt and stripped away on top, had been ruined. I raked my nails over her bare back and drove in and out of her, in and out of her, trying to pace my breathing. I could feel the cum pounding at the tip of my dick, ready to spray into her, but I had to hold on. Just a few more minutes.
Michelle’s trembling legs folded out from under her and we spilled down into our own puddle of juices. I rolled her slack, trembling body onto her back and gazed down at her. Sweat puddled in the hollow of her throat and glued strands of her hair to her face. “Oh, Michelle,” I breathed into her mouth. “Oh, Michelle, yes...” Her thighs came up around my hips, and I drove into her as deeply as I could. I buried myself against her sweaty neck.
Michelle called out in high-pitched nonsense to me, and her pussy clamped around me and spasmed, pumping my prick as it covered me in her sauce. I lost my mind bucking into her, and the attempt to hold orgasm at bay crashed around my ears. I came so hard, it seemed like each thrust of my cock was destroying this room, but I couldn’t stop.
When it was all over, and we were a panting tangle of limbs and ruined hair and half-on clothes, this office seemed otherworldly in its stillness. The symphony of our sex had probably been heard down the whole block.
“Damn,” I summarized. I felt like that was sufficient.
“Yeah,” Michelle agreed breathlessly. “Very good.”
We laid like a pile of hot noodles for several minutes.
“My fingers are numb,” she volunteered.
“I can’t stand up,” I said. “Hey, would you like to come to a friend’s wedding with me? His name is Grant. Her name is Lisa. They’re good people. We all went to high school together.”
“Like a date?” Michelle squeaked.
I raised my eyebrows and my gaze meandered over to Michelle, now cuddled up against my side, still looking like the victim of a catastrophe. Why did she have to sound so alarmed at that prospect?
“Exactly like a date,” I answered. “Is that moving too fast for you?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” Michelle’s teeth nipped at her lower lip, but this time, the gesture wasn’t sexy. She looked nervous. “You’re my client, Andrew.”
“I know that,” I scoffed. “We’re in your office right now.”
“What if someone saw us?”
“I’m hoping that dozens of people will see us,” I replied. “I wouldn’t have spent a few hundred dollars on the suit if that wasn’t the case. Are you about to say no?” I was half-kidding, because my softened member was only now just sliding out of her. I didn’t understand how she could let me inside her but not be willing to date me.
“I probably won’t fit in,” she worried. “I don’t do well with other people. I’m quiet. I come from a totally different lifestyle.”
“What?” I hissed. A totally different lifestyle?
“I’m sure they’re very fun people, but—I thought we were supposed to be pretending like we’d never slept together,” she blurted. “How are we supposed to be pretending like we never slept together and simultaneously taking each other on dates to weddings?”
I forced my wobbling legs to a stand and put my rumpled clothes back together. I tucked my seemingly lifeless dick back into my pants and zipped and buttoned.
Michelle sat up and covered her breasts, like she was surprised that I was leaving. “Wh-where are you going?”
“If we never slept together, I definitely wouldn’t be here having this conversation with you,” I explained tightly as I quickly and poorly buttoned the bottom half of my shirt. “Goddamnit!” I aborted the mission and grabbed my keys and my phone. “If you’re that goddamn different than me, then stop fucking with me,” I snarled, marching for the door.
“Wait, Andrew,” Michelle called after me. “It’s not about that!”
I wrenched the door open and glared out at the narrow street of downtown Pelham, dotted with lamps. I didn’t glance back at Michelle. I knew what I’d find: that distraught, beautiful face, the dress clutched around her like rags. I remembered this situation from every relationship I’d ever been in. This was the end of the movie.
But I wasn’t going to do this both ways. She couldn’t pretend that I was just her client when we were in public, and fuck my brains out behind closed doors.
If she wanted to take it back, then fine. I had never been inside her before. I’d never be inside her again.
Chapter Six
Michelle
I stared into the dregs of my coffee cup for several minutes before I fully registered the sound of a male voice calling to me, muffled by my kitchen windows.
“Michelle! Good morning!”
I furrowed my brow at the shadow on the other side of my curtains, yanking them to one side. Chet Browntooth stood in a stream of hot Texas sunshine, shading his eyes and knocking incessantly on the glass.
I almost rolled my eyes right in front of him. It was 8:30 in the morning on a goddamn Sunday. I wasn’t even wearing a bra yet. What was he doing here?
“Um, one second,” I called, striding back to my bedroom and hunting through the half-organized closet for a real shirt. I selected a cinnamon-colored cardigan and threw it over my shoulders. That would make me look frumpy and average, and it would hide my nipples from view: two birds with one stone.
I left my hair in its snarled half-ponytail monstrosity, left my face pale and tired, and went to answer the door. There was just something deep down inside me that wanted Chet Browntooth to believe in my ugliness.
“Morning, Chet,” I greeted, opening the front door for him.
Chet stood eagerly on the porch, cradling a glass dish covered in tin foil. “Morning. How is it possible that you look so beautiful right now?”
“Who knows?” I brushed off the compliment. “What’s going on?”
“Well, I made some monkey bread for breakfast, but it was way too much.”
“Ooh, monkey bread,” I echoed, even though I wasn’t really hungry. “That was one of my favorites when I was a kid.”
Chet brightened. “Really? Then I’m glad I brought it by.” He extended the dish. “Consider it my housewarming gift to you.”
“Thank you, Chet.” Cradling the warm glass against my stomach, the cardigan gapped open and exposed the shape of my nipples beneath the thin nightshirt I’d worn to bed. Damn it. I took a step back and made a hurried motion to close the door. Chet was being perfectly nice, but after watching that tape of how he treated Andrew, I couldn’t look at him as if he was a regular good person. The only reason I was being polite to him was my mother’s drill sergeant training that her daughters be polite to all guests. “Well, have a good morning. I’ll see you later.”
“Wait, wait,” Chet said, sticking his foot in front of the swinging door. I couldn’t believe he actually did that and scowled up at him. “What are you doing today? I’m off, and I’m as bored as a billy goat.”
“Uh, I had a project for today,” I told him, really wishing this conversation would wrap up. The awareness that my nipples were slightly exposed blared in the foreground of my thoughts, and Chet’s eyes ticked down, taking quick inventory of my breasts.
“Oh, really?” His eyes ticked back up to mine. “I’m a bit of a handyman, myself.”
“I’m installing a fountain in the front yard,” I hurried to explain. “You’re welcome to come by and lend a hand.” This was a complete lie, but it was the
lie I needed to tell to get this clinger off my porch.
Chet nodded eagerly. “Sounds good! I’ll see you in a few, Michelle.”
“Sounds great.”
I slammed the door and leaned against it, then trudged to the kitchen to put the monkey bread in the fridge. I shrugged off my cardigan and threw myself onto the living room sofa, groaning loudly into its cushions.
This was day two with zero interaction between myself and Andrew, unless you counted the message on my answering machine from yesterday: “Hello, Miss Harper,” it said. Miss Harper. “This is Ace from Ace Garage on Florence Street, just giving you a call to let you know your invoice is ready for pick-up. Just give me a call before you come, so I know to expect you. Thank you.”
He didn’t mention how much the work was going to be, and I was too proud to call him back and ask. I had to do this, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go to his house and face his stiff, blank-faced act, like he’d never known me as a lover. That wasn’t what I’d wanted when he stormed out of my office on Thursday. I just didn’t want to go to his friend’s wedding with him. I just didn’t want to be thrust into his world when I knew I wouldn’t fit there, when I knew I’d be some alienated, uptight joke to all his old Pelham friends.
I forced myself up from the couch and trudged to my bedroom for a shower and real clothes, surprised at how heavy and hopeless I felt. He was just a mechanic. He was just a client. He was just a one-night stand. Fleeting. Fun. This was always meant to be temporary. He was the one breaking the rules by inviting me to his friend’s wedding. That wasn’t what this was.
I sifted through my wardrobe and selected a pair of blue jean capris and a blue button-down shirt. I pulled the ponytail from my sloppy bedhead, collected a towel, and went hobbling to the shower, pushing myself to start the day. Yesterday had been a patchwork of paperwork and phone calls and intermittent spells of sorrow. That couldn’t be my life today.
I was just out of college. I might have been twenty-nine, but this was my first serious job out of law school, and I couldn’t blow it because I was depressed about some guy. This was my first real home, a rent-to-own deal into which I’d sunk all my savings to meet the down payment. And I had to keep pushing forward.
“Ace” Bogart would not throw me out of sync with my own life the way that Daniel Fletcher had. I was done being a pathetic, ruined girl. When my family lost all their money, Daniel dropped me as if I was hot to the touch. It took me years to get over the total abandonment of my childhood sweetheart... and there was no way some random mechanic could get under my skin and wreak just as much havoc in a matter of weeks. No way.
I climbed into the shower and cleaned myself up. I pushed Andrew fully from my mind. I swept his scent out of every corner. Scrubbed his fingerprints from my walls.
He didn’t get it yet. He saw me as I was on the inside. He didn’t see my shell the way other people saw it. Laidback, happy people thought that I was a hilarious joke, with my pressed skirts and the way I spoke. Hell, I’m originally from Connecticut. I could only imagine how a Texan wedding would be so loud and wild and free, and I’d be standing there in my little heels behind my little glasses, like a boat lost at sea.
Andrew didn’t get it yet, but he would. I didn’t belong in his world.
I stepped from the shower stall and toweled up, neatly brushing my hair and twisting it up in a tortoiseshell clasp. I slid my glasses back up my face and stared myself down in the foggy mirror.
Ten years ago, my ex realized I didn’t fit with his life. He realized I was an imposter, and I got jettisoned into the atmosphere. I promised myself it would never happen again. I promised myself I would focus on my career and on my budget until I eventually met “Mr. Right,” and when it finally happened, I would just know. He would just complement me without even realizing it.
And that person was not Andrew Bogart.
He thought the wedding sounded fun because it was part of his world. But if I invited him to one of my mother’s garden parties, he’d get it. He’d understand.
* * *
Before dragging the small fountain out of the walk-in closet and down the porch steps, I had to dig through multiple boxes for everything I’d need in this endeavor: colorful marbles for the base of the fountain, the figurines to surround it, the stupid pump. I wanted something cheerful and welcoming because it would probably shine in the center of the lawn. Maybe I’d speckle it with rainbow paints. I’d been hanging on to this fountain through three moves now, just waiting for the opportunity to have it displayed at a real house. Now where were those little fairy figurines?
They must have still been packed, and I must have put them in the wrong fucking box, because they weren’t with any of my cutesy decorations. Those were all just inspirational picture frames and funky planters.
I prepared to burrow into my walk-in closet—halfway loaded with boxes right now—but there was already an overturned and spilled cardboard box at the front of the closet. My shoulders sagged and I moved “find cutesy decorations” to the bottom of the list. Now I had to “fix fallen box,” and bowed to collect the several old diaries that littered the floor in here.
A sad smile cracked along my lips as I settled next to the box and neatly lined up the diary notebooks according to year. I would probably never read these things again. The only stories they had inside them were of fierce competition with my older sister, Allison, and lovesick poetry about how I would live happily ever after with Daniel, and what happened to my father... How little had I known?
I had lined up all the notebooks and noticed that the earliest high school notebook—a simple, small composition notebook—was missing.
How the hell had I left a notebook behind?
I pursed my lips and struggled deeper into the packed closet, trying not to worry about it too much. I’m an organized mover. I’ve never left a single thing behind that I actually wanted. So where was the diary? Here. That was the only possible solution. I needed to find the box of baubles and figurines and lug it onto the porch with the fountain.
I wasn’t going to think about the diary. It probably fell and got kicked somewhere. I wasn’t going to worry about Andrew. He was my mechanic, and I was his attorney. And that was it. And I was going to put this damn fountain together as if my life depended on it. I was going to beautify my yard in a funky and refreshing way if it killed me.
* * *
An hour later, I mopped at my beaded forehead and sat back on my haunches. I was dutifully removing all the area topsoil with a spade and no one had showed up to help me. Thank God. This was going to be an all-day job, and I didn’t know if I wanted Chet Browntooth to be an all-day neighbor.
“You’ve done a great job,” Chet’s voice rang out behind me and I jolted.
“Thanks, Chet.” I twisted and greeted him with an unenthusiastic wave. He approached down the driveway with his arms loaded in tools. Great. “You really don’t have to come over and help me,” I went on. “This is going to take all day and I—to be honest—I enjoy the solit—”
“No problem at all,” Chet insisted brightly. He dumped his tools at my feet and added, “You know what would really set your fountain off and give it some flair? River rocks.”
To be polite, I asked him, “Oh?” and kept chopping at the topsoil.
“Oh, yeah, I’ve got a few bags of those,” Chet said. “I just found them in my garage the other day. You can have them. For free,” he added heavily.
I slanted my mouth to the side. Woohoo, free stuff that you forgot you even had in the back of your garage. What a gesture, Chet.
“I was actually going to go to the store and grab a few pounds of stone dust,” I told him.
“Oh, no, you don’t want that,” Chet assured me. “River rocks are the way to go.”
“Oh, um, no, I don’t—”
He upended the first bag and sent a thick stream of river rocks over my yard. I coughed and brought my forearm up to my mouth.
“So c
lassy,” Chet went on. “Where’s your pump and your basin? Let’s get this show on the road.”
“The base has to be level for the basin,” I reminded him, packing down the river rocks with my spade. They shifted and collapsed wherever I touched. “I just tried to tell you that.”
“Aw, shit, I’m sorry,” Chet murmured, scrubbing at his hairline and separating the sprayed front line. “We’re gonna be out here all day now.” He paused as I began slowly but diligently removing the river rocks from my hole. I quelled the urge to snap at him because he hadn’t known what he was doing. When I looked up, I caught the way his eyes bore hungrily into me, and I wished there was a way to garden without bending so much.
“Is it insanely hot out here, or is it just you?” Chet asked. “Let me go grab us some cold drinks. I’ve got soda, lemonade, tea. What’s your poison?”
“Lemonade,” I called over my shoulder. He was already jogging toward his house when I looked again.
He was still in his kitchen when Andrew’s truck jostled into my driveway, even though he had already dropped my car off yesterday. Technically, there was no reason for us to talk. A hot bitterness rose up in my heart as my eyes tracked his shadow, leaning and ducking from the interior. Sunlight poured over him as he swung down onto my driveway. He wore slate gray jeans and a green, plaid, sleeveless button-down. My lip almost quirked in a welcoming smile. This was the most countrified I’d ever seen him look. I forced myself to look stern.
“Hey,” I called to him, scooping more river rocks from the hole.
“You’re installing a fountain,” Andrew deduced, nodding firmly as he surveyed the scene.
“Yes.” I kept shoveling and my eyes were trained on this pile of river rocks. I wondered how shitty I looked. Our fight last night threw off my whole routine, and I hadn’t washed my face before bed or drank any water when I woke up. All I’d had to drink was coffee and I felt hideous.
