Secrets & Lies

by Mia Ford

  We stumble through the door and I catch a glimpse of a tiny living room/kitchenette area, likely where the staff take breaks. There’s a large, comfortable looking lounge in the corner, and I push Grant in that direction.

  “This skirt needs to come off,” Grant says into my ear, biting at the soft cartilage.

  We careen to a stop and Grant pushes my skirt over my hips, hooking his fingers in my panties to drag them down too. I shiver as the cool air meets my bare skin and I grab the hem of Grant’s pants, shimmying them over his hips too. My skirt and panties fall to the ground and Grant steps back to push his own pants down, followed by his boxers. His penis, thick and weeping, springs free, and his eyes are dark with lust as he kicks the last of his clothes away. I can barely catch my breath; everything is happening so fast and my head is too busy spinning with desire to care about anything else.

  I don’t know who moves first. We meet in the middle, kissing frantically. There’s nothing loving or gentle about the kiss, it’s primal and desperate and full of the misery and darkness that has followed us both since we broke up. It makes my blood sing even while my heart clenches. The love we once had has warped into this, and all we can do now is focus on the want for each other that we both have.

  “Grant,” I gasp.

  He knocks me backward and I fall onto the soft couch. He looms over me, swinging a leg over to straddle my legs, and I am pressed in place both by his sharp eyes and his heavy body.

  “Talk later,” he promises. “Don’t run away again.”

  I can’t promise that, so I don’t. I don’t know if he notices that I don’t reply, but it doesn’t affect the way his palms run over my sweaty skin.

  I know I’m going to regret every bit of this in the morning. It’s stupid and ridiculous. I’ve run from Grant for three years, and I lose my mind the moment I see him again.

  Right now, though, I’m just going to lose myself in the moment. Grant is here, above me, touching me in ways that I have missed so terribly that I almost want to cry at the unfairness of only getting this once more. I’ll take what I can get right now.

  I can deal with the consequences of that later.

  Chapter Three

  Grant

  If anyone had told me that, after tonight’s shift, I would find myself in the breakroom, about to fuck my ex-girlfriend on the couch, I would have laughed and asked how drunk they were. Yet, here I am, straddling Jessica on the couch, her short, blonde hair splayed around her head like a damn halo, both feeling like an idiot and like I’ll fall apart if I stop touching her.

  I should have pushed her away the moment she kissed me. But I didn’t. Instead, my heart thundering in my chest, seized by the memory of just how much I’ve missed the woman in my arms, I kissed her back.

  Now, here we are. Our clothes are strewn across the room and the bar. I never locked the door, so anyone could walk in at any moment. For all I know, Jessica has another partner and she’s forsaking them to be here with me. I don’t know what her life is like anymore. There’s a huge part of me that doesn’t want to know.

  But none of that matters. The only thing I care about is her being here right now. It’s like stepping back in time, as though the three miserable years during which she was gone no longer exist. Her skin feels the same as I remember, the taste of her kisses are the same too. She’s even still using that floral perfume that I loved so much. Nothing has changed.

  Yet, everything has.

  “Are you going to sit there all night or are you going to touch me?” Jessica asks, wriggling beneath me.

  Part of me wants to laugh. She’s always been quiet and a little anxious, but she started to become more demanding and louder in the bedroom when we were together three years ago. The rest of me just tries to deal with the lust that shoots through me at her aggressive tone.

  “Depends on how you want me to touch you,” I say in a low voice. “Do you want me to touch you…here?”

  I curve my fingers around her hips, pressing against the prints I’ve already left, and she inhales sharply.

  “Or here?”

  I raise my hands, lightly brushing her skin with my fingertips, to her breasts, pinching the nipple and cupping the soft skin. Jessica writhes underneath me, choking on a gasp.

  “Or… here?”

  I lower one of my hands until it drifts between her legs. I play with the skin on her thigh for a moment as her limbs tremble, and then I touch her entrance, swiping my fingers through the slick that has gathered there.

  “You’re so wet for me,” I say, pressing harder, and she whines, her hips jerking down as though trying to swallow my fingers into her body. “It’s going to make it easy for me to fuck you hard.”

  “Oh, please, fuck me as hard as you can,” she groans out.

  “I intend to,” I say, my voice full of promise.

  Her lithe body moves against mine, every brush of her skin sending electrified sparks through me. My whole body is heaving with need and I can barely hold myself back from touching her, or just entering her, desperate to re-experience the feel of her body clenching around mine.

  I don’t want to draw this out. But at the same time, I don’t want it to finish quickly, either. The part of me that isn’t taken over by half-crazed lust is well aware that this can only be a one-time thing. Jessica doesn’t want me; she made that clear three years ago. And I only want the memory I’ve been chasing all this time.

  But maybe that’s okay. Maybe we’ll both get this out of our system and go our separate ways, finally done with one another. Maybe I’ll finally be able to live my life without constantly regretting everything that went wrong.

  I rub my fingers between her legs again, and her whole body jerks at the sensations that are running through her. I circle the rough pads of my fingers around her entrance, which twitches while she pants, her chest heaving.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  I don’t wait for her answer. I plunge one finger into her body. She cries out, her muscles tensing around my finger, and I suck in a sharp breath. After a long moment, she relaxes and I wriggle another finger inside her.

  “You should feel how tight your walls feel around my fingers,” I say to her. “It’s so fucking hot in here.”

  I wait until she’s relaxed enough that I know she’s gotten used to the intrusion, and then I begin to thrust my fingers shallowly, dragging them in and out of her body until her hips begin thrusting down, trying to take more of me. Then I add a finger and thrust them in even deeper, curving them as I search for the spot that will make Jessica see stars.

  “Shit!” she cries when I find it, her body arching off the couch. “Shit, fuck… Oh my god, Grant!”

  I chuckle, pleased at her reaction, and her breath hitches at the sound.

  “I’ve got more than that for you,” I tell her.

  I thrust my fingers in a few more times before pulling them out of her body entirely. She trembles, throwing her head back, panting, as her legs fall apart when I move forward, inviting me in closer. My penis throbbing painfully, desperate for release.

  There’s a part of me that thinks I still have time to stop this. But I know we’re both already too far gone now for that. I line myself up against her, trembling as much as she is, and slowly begin sinking into my body.

  The heat is almost overwhelming. It’s been too long since I’ve had anything like this, and my heart clenches at the overwhelming sensations of being surrounded by Jessica’s tight, wet heat. I have to pause several times just to take a deep breath, not wanting to release too early.

  Finally, I’m sitting deeply inside Jessica, and she’s breathing heavily beneath me, her eyes tightly shut. My entire body is tense and I force myself to relax, taking in several measured breaths. We’re both so close to the edge that it isn’t going to take much for us to tip over.

  Then, after several long seconds, Jessica opens her eyes and looks up at me.

  “Fuck me,” she says.

  I jerk at her word
s, and then I pull out, thrusting back in hard. Her hands find my shoulders and she clutches them, nails scoring my skin as she clings to me. My hands wrap around her hips, and I wonder if we’re both going to carry marks come tomorrow, marks that will take ages to fade but will eventually become as much a memory as everything else we have ever done together.

  “Grant…” Jessica moans as I thrust into her over and over.

  I wish that this was three years ago. I wish we could just skip the years that we’ve spent apart so that we could just pick up where we left off and pretend it never happened. It’s my deepest wish, the one that I won’t even dare voice to my best friends, because it can never happen like that. Even if Jessica told me that she still loved me and that she wanted to still be with me when we wake up in the morning, it’s never going to be the same. Those years still happened, and I can’t just sweep them away.

  Jessica cries out at a particularly hard thrust, and I know I’ve found her g-spot. I angle myself to hit it. Heat is washing over me, and I know I’m close. I want to bring Jessica down with me, and her fingers tighten and my thrusts speed up, chasing the wave of lust that is slowly spilling over us both.

  Then, finally, my vision whitens, and my body shudders as I gasp, thrusting in deeply one last time. I can feel Jessica trembling beneath me, her back arching as her own orgasm hits, and we ride it out together, clinging to each other until the wave slowly begins to subside.

  When it’s gone, I’m left feeling weak and shaky. I pull limply out of Jessica and crash down beside her when she helpfully shifts sideways.

  We should talk. We need to talk about why we broke up three years ago and why this has happened between us now… Why we allowed this to happen between us after everything else. But I’m too exhausted to think about any of it right now.

  So, instead, I drag a thin blanket off the back of the couch and throw it over the two of us. Jessica gives me a small smile, her eyes already closing, and I settle in beside her.

  The morning… I’ll get some answers in the morning.

  I open my eyes slowly. There’s a spear of sunlight coming in through the window at just the wrong angle, making it fall across my eyes. I’m covered in a thin blanket on a soft couch and, for a moment, I’m confused about where I am. I look around blearily, noticing my clothes in a pile next to me, which reminds me that I’m totally naked under the blanket.

  I glance up at the clock. That’s when I realize that I’m in the Anchor Bar’s breakroom. It’s early. Too early for Fiona to be arriving to open the bar for the day shift. Then I remember it’s Saturday; the bar is open later and I have no need to be here.

  So why am I here now?

  Then I remember.

  Jessica.

  Slowly, I close my eyes and lay back down. I’m an idiot.

  I’m even more of an idiot for hoping, for even a moment, that she would stick around in the morning so we could talk properly about what happened…or for hoping that I wouldn’t wake up alone.

  Chapter Four

  Jessica

  Idiot, idiot, idiot!

  That one-word mantra follows me as I quickly get dressed and exit the bar before the sun comes up, leaving Grant sleeping peacefully on the couch. Part of me feels guilty about sneaking off on him.

  The rest of me is too busy berating myself for my stupidity to care.

  I have spent three years trying to ignore everything about Grant, even though everything in my life seems intent on reminding me of him every step of the way. I walked away from him, so there should be no reason to think about him or miss him.

  But I have missed him. I’ve thought about him almost constantly. And then, with the slightest drop of alcohol in me after seeing him for the first time in years, I throw myself at him and end up having sex with him.

  Idiot!

  I glance at my phone as I hurry down the street. I sent Hazel a message as soon as I woke, apologizing profusely for not returning home last night, but she hasn’t replied. No doubt she was already asleep at that time of night. I’ll owe her so much for last night, and not just because I still have to pay her. Maybe I should stop by an ATM on the way home to get some money out.

  I hurry up the street and, only when I’m a good distance away, near a small convenience store that is still open, do I stop and I take a breath. Grant never woke up, so he hasn’t followed me, which means that I got away cleanly. I don’t have to explain myself just yet.

  Though hopefully I won’t ever have to, if I can help it.

  Slowly, I search for the taxi company’s number and dial it. It doesn’t take me long to order a cab, and I’m relieved when the woman on the other end recognizes the convenience store I’m standing in front of, because I have no idea where I am right now. The area isn’t very familiar to me, and it’s not a place I would have come to if Allison hadn’t dragged me out.

  The taxi turns up quickly, not particularly busy at this time of the morning. The brown-haired taxi driver grunts at me when I give him my address, obviously not wanting to converse, and I’m more than okay with sitting in silence while I try and shove my frantic thoughts into a box so I can lock them away.

  It’s over. It’s done. Grant and I had sex. Now I’m on my way home, and I never have to see him again.

  I lean my head against the cool window and close my eyes. I can’t believe that Grant turned up again after all these years. Seeing him in the flesh, it’s hard to remember just why I left him. But, as I cast my mind back, I’m thrown into memories of what we once had and how it all fell apart.

  Grant and I were together for two and a half years. We met at a bar; Grant was tall and handsome in a leather jacket, a bike helmet sitting on the bar beside him as he leaned over it to speak to the bartender. His face had been alight with mirth, and his strong hands were gesturing as he made his point. He was physically attractive and it had been difficult to keep my eyes off him.

  It was my friends that pushed me toward him. I haven’t spoken to many of those women in years; they slowly dropped away after I had Owen and I wasn’t able to go out anymore with them. But, at the time, I was thankful for them, because they literally pushed me into Grant’s arms.

  The surprise on his face when I stumbled into him was priceless, but his muscled arms caught me, and I almost swooned right then. I barely remember what we talked about, because I spent most of the conversation just staring at him, but, somehow, we ended up alone at a table. At the end of the night, he gave me his number.

  He was sweet and open, and the first date he took me on, he showed up in a car that he borrowed from a friend, being unsure whether I was okay with being on a motorbike. His smile could light up whatever room he was in, and I loved seeing it.

  I loved him. He was easy to love. He always had a ready joke and he would bend over backward to make me happy. He was the type that would send flowers just because he wanted to, or accept extra work just to buy me the earrings I loved. In return, I tried to do the same; he wasn’t able to afford his club jacket because of the lovely birthday present he had bought me, so I used the money I had been meticulously saving to get it for him, just so I could see his smile and remind him how much I loved him.

  We were perfect. We had our secrets from each other, but that didn’t seem to affect us at all. We rarely argued, and we always had somewhere new to be each weekend, whether it was a trip out of state or just a picnic in the park.

  There was always a lingering darkness in his eyes, but I didn’t ask him about it; his secrets were his, and he would tell me when he was ready.

  So, I supported him as much as I could. He joined the Roughshod Rollers, and I met Alex Howard, who seemed nice. He mentioned others, like Kyle and Ethan, but I never met them. It started to seem like he was leading a second life, but I knew it was because he was worried about what I thought about him joining a motorcycle club. I didn’t know how to reassure him that it was okay, so I left it alone and hoped that, eventually, he wouldn’t stress as much.

 
Then I stumbled on a folder.

  I don’t think Grant meant to leave it out. I wasn’t even meant to be home; I went on a weekend retreat with my family, but I started feeling sick and I went home. There had been a stomach virus going around, and I had caught it at the worst possible time.

  Grant was at work; he’d just gotten his license to work at a bar, and he had started a job at the Anchor Bar, where a lot of his club mates went. He wanted me to go there soon, and meet the guys, and I was ecstatic. Part of me thought I could even go down and surprise him. He finally was ready to pull me into that side of his life, and I had an entire speech prepared about how much I loved his motorbike and his passions.

  The stupid thing was sitting on the kitchen table. It was old and rumpled, as though Grant had flicked through it many, many times. I probably should have left it alone. But I didn’t. I was curious. So I flicked it open. There was an article on top, and I stared at the title that blared out at me.

  “Murder Suspect Still at Large”

  I remember being surprised and unsure. Why was Grant keeping something like this? The article was slightly yellowed, so it was a few years old. It was dated several years before I met Grant. So I read it, and my heart froze in my chest as key statements leaped out at me.

  “Victim found stabbed several times….”

  “Police allegedly caught sight of the perpetrator fleeing the scene…”

  “The public is asked to keep an eye out for Grant Johnson (19), as he is still at large and possibly dangerous…”

  Did Grant murder someone? I flipped frantically through the papers Grant had collected. There were other articles, several about the manhunt from Grant, one about his eventual arrest, and then another detailing the upcoming court case. There was a piece of another that had been ripped to pieces, but I could see, in the small bit that was there, the image of Grant walking beside a man I didn’t recognize, his hands in cuffs. Grant had scrawled all over the words of the article, so I couldn’t even read what was there.