by Cassia Leo
“I don’t know.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “Is she your girlfriend?”
I contemplated the question for a moment. My buddies called Olivia a rebound when we began dating three weeks ago, but somewhere between then and now it had turned into more.
“You’d like Olivia. She’s a lot like you.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Olivia is a lot like me. What is that supposed to mean? Is she…? Oh, God…. Is she your new assistant?”
I gritted my teeth as I began to feel angry with myself. I had visualized this moment in my mind for weeks and now I was saying all the wrong things.
“I am such an idiot,” she continued. “What does that make me, the last link in a long chain of ‘assistants’?”
“Brina, you were never my assistant.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was the fuck buddy who nearly screwed your career. Easily defeated and, apparently, easily forgotten.”
Even with her eyes narrowed at me and insults spewing from her mouth, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. It took everything in me not to kiss her right fucking there in front of this crowd of onlookers.
“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” I whispered. “We need to talk about this?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything more to say. I came here to congratulate you and I did that. You have every right to see whoever you want. It’s none of my business. Goodbye, Luke.”
“Brina, don’t go.”
The crowd parted as she set off across 8th without looking back. I instantly switched modes. It was the only way to make it back to the conference center without drawing too much attention. I put on a smile and nodded at everyone who smiled or greeted me as I crossed Pike Street and made my way back into the conference room. Olivia was standing right where I had left her, talking to someone on the phone. She didn’t see me.
The truth was that Olivia was nothing like Brina. Olivia got the same background check Brina got when she came to work for me, but Olivia came up as clean as the code for Blaze. No glitches.
Brina’s background check was dirty as hell. I didn’t know how the fuck her boss expected her to pull the wool over my eyes. But I was so curious, I decided to hire her. Besides, it was good practice for me. I already employed various hackers to attempt to crack the software on our phones. There was no reason not to hire someone to attempt to steal information from me. The moment I saw Brina’s name on the list of applicants the agency sent me, I knew I had no choice.
Her brother’s death had affected me more than any of the funerals of servicemen I had donated to. It wasn’t just the fact that he had committed suicide or that Brina had missed his funeral. Something about the fact that she was with him when he died made me want to know her. I wanted to know how someone could move on with their life after enduring something so horrific.
I didn’t expect to find that she hadn’t moved on. I didn’t expect to find someone so beautifully broken and haunted by regret. I didn’t expect to fucking fall in love with her.
Olivia finally saw me as she hung up the phone. She smiled weakly and, though I really wanted to, I couldn’t smile back.
3: BRINA
By the time I reached the Prius, Milo was asleep. I climbed in to the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.
“What the fuck?” he muttered, as he flipped up the driver’s seat and oriented himself.
“Can we please get out of here?”
I didn’t think Luke would come after me, but I felt an intense need to put as much distance between us as possible. I didn’t want to know about him or Olivia.
“What’s wrong with you?” Milo asked, as he pulled out of the parking space. “You look like you saw Prince Luke banging someone.”
I slid the box out from underneath the seat and stuffed the phone back in before I slid it back into place. I pulled off the fake press pass and tossed it into the backseat.
“Just drive. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Milo stared at me as he got in line behind a queue of cars waiting to pay the parking attendant. “What a fucking idiot.”
“Sure. Kick me while I’m down.”
“Not you; him. If he let you go then, yeah, he’s a fucking idiot.”
“Milo, you don’t have to try to make me feel better. I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“Fine, but I’m starving. Let’s go get some fajitas.”
I turned my face away from the passenger side window, away from the street, as Milo pulled up next to the automatic parking attendant. “I’m not hungry.”
He inserted his parking pass into the machine and moved forward when the lever went up. “I thought you said you owe me one. Come on, B.”
“Fine. Anything to make sure you never call me B again.”
He grinned as he pulled out onto Union and headed toward his favorite Mexican restaurant. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but it looks like you need to get something off your chest. See, right there?” He pointed at my chest and I looked down. He flicked my chin and laughed as I flinched.
“What are you, 12?”
I punched his arm, but he just kept laughing as he fiddled with the stereo controls on his steering wheel. He stopped when he got to a song he liked and I recognized it as the band whose shirt he was wearing. The song brought up a memory of sitting in the backyard at my parents’ house with Ryan, Jesse, and Jesse’s girlfriend last summer. Jesse’s girlfriend was pre-law and a raging stoner. As I listened to the tinny electronic beat in Milo’s car, I could almost smell the weed and hear the laughter.
I guess one good thing came out of this fiasco: I got to congratulate Jesse.
Four shots of tequila and one ginormous plate of nachos later, Milo finally got me to talk.
“He already has another girlfriend,” I slurred, as I waved a half-empty glass of water in Milo’s face. “And you should have seen his face when she kissed him. Oh, God! It was disgusting.”
“Brina, you are a major fucking lightweight. You only took four shots.”
“I haven’t eaten.”
“You just ate nachos.”
“Whatever.” I took another long swig of water then snatched my straw out of the glass and pointed it at him as I continued. “Then he follows me outside like it’s some kind of fucking movie and he’s going to say something beautiful—but, no! He didn’t say anything beautiful. He… he pissed all over my plan. Just pisssssssssss.”
Milo took the straw out of my hand before I could put it in front of my crotch. “Alright, that’s enough for you. It’s time to get you home.”
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want my dad to see me like this… it’s freaking 12:30 in the afternoon.” I giggled as I realized I was tragically drunk at noon on a Monday, but Milo didn’t find it funny. “If Ryan were here he would laugh.”
“You can sober up at my apartment.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as he stuck my straw into his glass of water. “You’d better not try anything funny.”
He rolled his eyes. “Or what? You’ll pretend to piss on me? Come on, Batgirl—”
“—To the Batmobile!” I said, finishing his sentence.
He shook his head as he plunked down a couple of hundreds on the table and nodded toward the exit.
“Are you sure this is your apartment?” I asked, as we entered his apartment in Capitol Hill. “It’s so pretty.”
I scooped up a hammered steel vase from a dark table near the front door. There was nothing inside the vase. Everything was so clean and modern.
“I didn’t do any of this. It was all my interior designer.” He tossed his keys onto the dark table and moved further down the hall toward an open space with a large wall of windows.
I followed him inside and was struck by how similar the furnishings were to the furnishings in Luke’s bungalow. I wondered if they had the same interior decorator.
“I bet all the girls just drop their panties th
e second they see this place,” I said, as I dropped my purse onto the coffee table and plopped down on the plush cream sofa.
“Do you need an aspirin?” he called from the kitchen, totally ignoring my comment. “I’ve got some snacks if you’re hungry.”
“Aw… Milo’s taking care of me,” I teased him, though I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. I was starting to feel quite sober.
He walked in with a glass of water and two aspirin resting in the palm of his hand. “Take these and I won’t force you to play video games with me.”
I took the pills from his hand and swallowed them down with a few gulps of water. “Do you have Mortal Kombat?”
“Do I have Mortal Kombat? What kind of question is that? Of course, I have Mortal Kombat. You play Mortal Kombat?”
“It’s the only game my brother taught me how to play.”
Milo narrowed his eyes at me as he turned on the TV and switched the input to the game system. “Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
He scrolled through a bunch of games that were apparently saved on a memory card until he got to Mortal Kombat.
“Yes,” I hissed. “You’re going down.”
Seven games later I jumped to my feet and spiked the controller down on the carpet.
“I win again!”
Milo scooped the controller off the floor and tried to hand it to me. “One more. Best eight out of fifteen.”
I pushed his hand away as I sat back down. “Nuh-uh. I am undefeated and I’m done humiliating you.”
He placed the controller in my lap. “Come on. One more. If I win we go best out of fifteen. If you win we quit.”
I picked up the controller from my lap and placed it on the sofa between us. “No. I’m done and I’m the champion so I make the rules.”
He held the controller in front of me again. “Here you go, champ. Just one more.”
I laughed as I pushed his hand away. “You’re such a sore loser.”
He put the controller back in my lap and I immediately picked it up and chucked it across the floor.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s it. You’re going down.”
He chucked his controller aside and lunged at me. I screamed as I held my arms and legs straight out to hold him off.
“Stop it!” I squealed through my laughter. “Don’t be gross, Milo!”
His hands groped my armpits and I laughed maniacally as I kicked and pushed, but he was surprisingly strong and agile, dodging my kicks and grasping both my wrists in one of his hands.
“There’s no use resisting. I’ve got skills you’ve never heard of.”
My limbs were so weak from laughing, I couldn’t resist if I wanted to—and suddenly I didn’t want to. As soon as I stopped fighting, we locked eyes.
“What kind of skills?” I asked.
He let go of my wrists and my hands fell onto the pillow under my head. A slow, devious smile formed on his lips as he eased himself between my legs.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
I was still breathing so hard, partially from the laughter but mostly from the anticipation. I nodded quickly and his hand slid under the bottom of my T-shirt. I sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers lightly brushed the skin over my ribs. His eyes were still locked on mine as his other hand easily unfastened the button on my jeans and pulled down my zipper. I was breathing way too fast.
He grabbed my leg behind my knee as he eased himself down on top of me. “Relax.”
The weight of his body on top of me did relax me. He sank down further, his eyes still locked on mine, as our lips connected. He kissed me slowly and tenderly as his hand slid under the small of my back, lifting me so our bodies were pressed tightly against each other.
His mouth tasted faintly sweet from the tequila. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck as I ground my hips against the growing erection under his jeans.
He pulled back and frowned at me. “Slow down, Batgirl. It’s only three o’clock.”
I almost laughed. “Ooh, Milo’s going to take all day to seduce me.”
He rolled his eyes as he leaned in to kiss my neck. “Just give me a few minutes and you’ll stop referring to me in third person.”
He kissed my jaw and I smiled. “How am I going to refer you?” I asked, as I softly raked my fingernails over his lower back.
He shuddered as he kissed the corner of my mouth. “You’ll be calling me big daddy.” I laughed harder than when he tickled me and he poked me in the side. “Oh, you just wait. Stand up.”
He stood up and watched me with a seductive look in his eyes as he waited for me to stand.
I faced him and he smiled. “Put your arms up.” I tried not to roll my eyes as I raised my arms and he lifted my T-shirt over my head so I was standing before him in my bra and unfastened jeans. “Turn around.”
I turned my back to him and he quickly unfastened my bra then grabbed my hips to turn me back around. My bra straps fell loosely down my shoulders and he watched as I let it fall to the floor.
He gazed at my breasts for a moment before he looked up at me and shook his head. I pushed my jeans down until they hit the floor and I slinked out of them. I stood before him in nothing but a pair of lacy black panties feeling more empowered than I had all day. I knew Milo had been waiting for this day for a long time and, now that it was here, I realized I had been waiting for it, too.
He shrugged out of his hipster T-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t stop there. He took off his designer underwear and my eyes widened.
He was huge.
I thought Luke was big, but I had gotten accustomed to leaning forward when I was on top. When he was on top, he would watch my face for signs of pain to make sure he wasn’t going too deep.
But, apparently, that was nothing. I was seriously afraid of the erection pointing at me at that moment.
“Oh, my,” was all I could say as I stared at it. He stepped toward me and my body tensed. “Oh, God.”
He chuckled at my obvious trepidation. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Part of me wanted to grab my clothes, run out into the street naked, and hitchhike home. Another part of me, a very curious part of me, saw this as a challenge to be conquered. I wrapped my fingers around the base and my hand didn’t even cover half of it.
“I can do this,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. I looked up and I could see he was holding back his laughter. “This is not funny. That… that looks lethal.”
“Come with me,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me toward a door to the left of the wall where the TV was mounted.
It was a home gym, complete with two treadmills, weight machines, floor mats, and exercise balls.
“What the hell? Are you going to make me work out first? Do I need to bench press a hundred pounds to qualify?”
“Nah, I’ve got something a little more exciting in mind.” He rolled an exercise ball onto the middle of one of the mats and patted it. “Sit down.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You’re not kidding. And I find it strangely hot.”
I sat on the ball and he knelt in front of me. “I am going to give you the most intense orgasm you have ever had in your life.” I gulped as he pulled my panties off and spread my legs open as I sat on the ball. “Lie back over the ball.”
“Really?”
“Really. Lie back.”
I took a deep breath and he held tightly to my hips as I lay back until my head was upside down. Before I could complain about the fact that I wasn’t facing the mirror, his tongue parted my fleshy folds and found my center.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered.
Something about being in this position made me feel both totally powerless and totally in control, as if I were a queen being tended to by a servant. My thighs rested on his shoulders as he held tightly to the ball to steady me. But it was his tongue that was the star of the show. He licked me softly then firmly making my lower half quiver while the blood rushed to my head, making me feel slightly p
anicked and dizzy. It was a mixture of pleasure and pain I had never experienced.
“Oh, yes.”
His tongue massaged me in a rolling motion and I could feel the orgasm building throughout my entire body. I shuddered as he gently rocked the ball back and forth.
“Oh, God!” I whimpered, as my legs clamped around his head and my entire body curled inward then collapsed over the ball as waves of pleasure rolled through me.
I swore the ball was going to roll sideways and I was going to fall off, but he somehow managed to hold it steady until my body stopped trembling. He slowly rolled me forward to lower me down until I was sitting on the mat.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered, as I tried to catch my breath. My legs were still shaking and my arms were a bit wobbly as I attempted to lean back.
“Lay back and relax.”
My arms shook as I lowered myself back until I was lying before him.
“Don’t wrap your legs around me this time,” he said, and I had a feeling I knew why. He wanted to be able to control how deep he entered me.
He slid forward between my legs, but I pushed down on his shoulder to stop him before he entered. “Do you have a condom? I haven’t been taking my pills.”
“Come on. Let’s take this to the bedroom.”
Once we reached his bedroom, where his nightstand was stocked with a lifetime supply of condoms, everything went hazy. It turned out Milo did know tricks I had never heard of, and it took a bit of self-inflicted amnesia to let him teach me those tricks without thinking of Luke.
I woke to find the other side of the bed empty, but still slightly warm. I ran my hand over the silky sheet for a moment before Milo walked in wearing athletic shorts, a tank top, and a gray hoodie.
“Where are you going?”
He grabbed his phone off the dresser and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. “Kickboxing. I go every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. You can stay. I’ll only be gone a couple of hours. Feel free to make yourself some coffee or whatever the hell you do in the morning.”
