The Price of Inertia

by Lily Zante

  When Jamie leaves, I take my lunch and head back into the study because I can’t face her. I can’t bear to be around her.

  But once I’m at my desk, I play with my tuna salad. My appetite is lost. All I see is that image of her with her arms around Jamie. I keep staring at the screen, editing and rewriting my words, hating every single word that I’ve written. I’m in danger of stalling again.

  This has to stop. I’ve decided I’m going home to New Orleans at the end of this week, even if the manuscript isn’t as finished as I want.

  Mari is playing with me. Messing with my head. Screwing with my writing. I can’t have another day of sitting around unable to do anything because I am this close to finishing this book, and yet these last few chapters have dragged on.

  I know the reason why. She’s in the kitchen, oblivious of the hell she’s putting me through. She’s left her mark on me. Wormed her way into my skin, burrowed deep into my mind.

  I will fix this now. I push away from my desk and decide to confront her but in my quietly simmering haste and rage, I run right into her as I storm out of my study. She’s outside my door, carrying the vacuum cleaner. Her large eyes widen, and she springs back, still clutching the damned vacuum cleaner hose.

  “Sorry,” she cries, breathless and timid, and so unlike her. The shock of brushing against her has a similar effect on my mind. I feel just as breathless and startled but I don’t apologize. I’m not in the mood to be nice.

  “You were gone the entire weekend.”

  She tilts her head, lifting her chin in a defiant manner. “And what if I was? You said I have weekends off. I’m sorry I forgot to leave your lunch and dinner.”

  “I can manage.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Because I can see there is one.”

  Smart little minx. She’s come to know me so well. My moods, my thoughts. It’s almost frightening. I grit my teeth. Honesty isn’t the way I deal with these things. Not when it comes to being vulnerable, letting myself open up to another person. My past taught me that doing so only breaks you. I want to be unbreakable, and that’s why I don’t get close. Rob is the closest I will allow, and now Mari wants to know what the problem is.

  “I’m careful.” I breathe out. Confessing is hard. “When it comes to meeting people, I like to keep my distance.”

  “Is that all?” she asks, confounding me. What the hell does she mean ‘is that all’? I narrow my eyes.

  “We’re done then.” She bends down to pick her vacuum cleaner up again.

  I let her take a few strides away from me before hollering. “No. That is not all.”

  She sets down the vacuum cleaner but doesn’t immediately turn to face me. This woman is going to be the death of me. She presses every single button to my moods, turning them as easily as if she were changing channels on a TV remote.

  I’ve never met anyone like her, have never been with anyone like her. I’m at her mercy, and while I like it that way sometimes, I hate giving up my power. I hate her having control of me. Letting others have control of your moods and therefore your well-being isn’t the way to survive, and survival is the only game I play.

  I walk up to her, and around her so that I’m facing her. She appears calm, even if she crosses her arms again. “I’m not used to this,” I tell her.

  She stays silent. Now she’s playing her game. She’s not going to give an inch. It’s all down to me. I can’t do without her, so I have to bare all.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen, this thing between you and me. I don’t get close. I don’t open up, but you,” I lift up my hand, about to jab my finger in her direction, then stop myself. “You put me in a situation that is new and uncomfortable. A situation I didn’t want to be in.” I stare at her face, at the lips I long to kiss, and I want her to say something. I want her to acknowledge that she heard me.

  “And what situation is that?”

  “You know what situation,” I cry out.

  “Then say it,” she orders.

  I bite down hard. Nobody makes me do anything I don’t want to. So why the hell is Mari different? “When you and I ...” I clear my throat. “When we’re ...”

  “You want sex,” she states calmly, as if she’s asking me to pass the ketchup.

  “You say that as if it’s all I want from you,” I retort. I want something more, something everlasting; sex is fleeting, transient. I want longevity. I want to take a shot at something even though things never worked out for me before. With Mari, I finally feel like trying again.

  “It is all you want from me. Have you forgotten out last conversation? You can’t communicate. You’re a writer, Ward, but you can’t talk to me.”

  All too well, unfortunately. The painstaking silence drags on like a freight train. Heavy and labored. I wish she would say something. Once again, our roles have reversed, how is it that I’m on tenterhooks waiting to hear what she has to say? “I’ve always told you that I’m not good with people.”

  “But you’ll take the sex, if you can get it?” she taunts.

  The muscles along my jaw flex. I’m in danger of grinding down a few layers of enamel on my teeth because they’re so tightly clenched.

  “I missed you. When you were gone over the weekend, I wanted you back here.”

  She lets out a surprised gasp. “You’re wondering what I was up to, staying over at Jamie’s place. You’re wondering what we did. You’re wondering why I didn’t come home until late the next night.”

  I watch her lips move, and I remember tasting her sweet little mouth and hate that someone else might have touched her. “Did you fuck him?” I spit out.

  A look of revulsion flickers across her eyes, her face wrinkling as if she’s tasted something disgusting. “Your imagination is wild. Almost bordering on paranoid, some would say.”

  I grasp her wrist. It’s thin and fragile. I soften my grip not wanting to hurt her. “You behave as if you have a hold on me, Ward. As if I matter. As if you care.”

  “I do care. I care about you.” I can’t believe I said that to her, and as much as it surprises me, it also seems to catch her off guard. “I do care,” I tell her again, thumbing her wrist slowly. “I might not have said the right things the other day, but I was telling the truth.”

  She snatches her wrist away. “You didn’t really tell me anything except that you don’t want to open up. You don’t want more.”

  She picks up her vacuum cleaner again, and my anger rises. I’m not done yet. “Where are you going?” We’re not done. I’m not done. I’ve just exposed my inner feelings, and she’s tossed them away like a week-old bag of salad.

  “Thank you for leveling with me,” she says. “I appreciate it.”

  Appreciate it?

  Is that all I get? I watch her go up the stairs, only this time I don’t offer to help. My ego has been dented and I don’t have it in me to be chivalrous.

  * * *

  MARI

  * * *

  I force myself to walk away smoothly, to show that I have it together, but I don’t. I’m clutching the vacuum cleaner so tightly that it’s sure to leave the imprints in my hand. I feel the heavy weight of Ward’s stare as I try to climb the stairs as confidently as I can.

  At the top, once I’m out of his sight, I lean back against a wall and inhale. My legs are shaky, my heart thundering like a hundred galloping horses.

  Ward Maddox just did the unthinkable. He let down his armor and told me that he missed me. He told me that he wanted me back. He said he cares about me.

  Inside, the cells in my body jiggle with joy. A beating, a throbbing, a pulsating orchestra of music starts up inside me all playing in sweet harmony, as if Ward’s fingers have plucked the strings to my heart and commanded the rest of me to follow suit.

  He just wants sex. An ugly whisper starts up in my head.

  No, he doesn’t, I tell myself. Those weren’t the words of someone who craves just sex. Ward is as lonely as me, as broken as me, but for different r
easons.

  Naturally, I’m in shock after what he said. I would have jumped on him, thrown my arms around his neck, wrapped my legs around his waist. I would have sealed his mouth with my lips and kissed him deeply. We would have probably wound up having sex right then and there in that hallway.

  I wanted to.

  I could have.

  But I didn’t.

  Who does he think he is that he can come to me when he has a need and expect me to give in?

  I will punish him.

  He’s jealous because he thinks I was with Jamie. I hold my hand to my beating heart. A blanket of warmth wraps itself around me. Ward Maddox misses me and cares about me.

  I’m the luckiest woman alive, and this time I’m not going to give in to him as easily.

  Chapter Forty

  MARI

  * * *

  Dare I believe that things between us are back to normal?

  I can’t read the book that last night I couldn’t put down.

  I can’t watch TV.

  Ward hasn’t talked about his word count, and I’m aware that he’s in editing mode. He seems more miserable than ever and I can’t tell if it’s because of the state of his revisions or if it’s because I haven’t responded at all to his startling admission of feelings for me a few days ago.

  I took his words and held onto them for a few more days. I wanted them for myself, to replay them over and over again, before Ward’s mood changed and he replaced those words with cruel ones.

  I have come to know that this is fleeting, and he won’t allow himself the gift of happiness for too long. He’ll revert back. He’s damaged and with a childhood like his, it’s not hard to see why.

  We’re back to having lunch and dinner together, but this time each interaction is fraught with a frisson of sexual tension.

  Jamie reminds me about dinner on Saturday, and he does this in front of Ward, not knowingly, because Jamie has no idea about me and Ward. Yet I see the expression on Ward’s face change. I enjoy seeing his unease.

  Later that evening, after the two of us have had dinner, I get up to load the dishwasher when Ward comes over to help me, even though it’s not his job, and even though there are only a few dishes. “You don’t have to do this. I can manage.”

  “I can’t sit and watch you and do nothing.”

  “You used to sit and watch me,” I retort, and then, to soften the blow. “It’s my job, remember? We signed a contract.”

  His face darkens and I sense the chill in his mood. He’s trying to make amends and be extra nice and I’ve thrown the word back at him. I’m still not sure if it’s his cock or his heart that needs more attention, but I am enjoying this time and milking it for all it’s worth.

  “Done,” I say, closing the dishwasher door. “Everything is done. It’s been a good day.” I’m feeling especially chirpy, because his silence and subdued mood, and that look in his eyes, tell me he needs me. “Has it been for you?”

  “What?” he growls.

  “A good day?”

  “I’ve made progress.” He stares at me. I wait for him to say it, to tell me that he’s had a good day. It’s no longer about word counts, because he isn’t doing much writing, just the rewriting. He looks pleased with himself, yet he doesn’t articulate any of that. Probably because he knows what I would think.

  “That’s wonderful. Well, goodnight.” I start to walk away because I have to reply to the email I have about a job interview.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have things to do.”

  I walk away, even though my body has already prepared itself in anticipation of having him in my bed, but that’s not going to happen until I say so.

  But as I retire to my room for the evening, I’m at a loss for what to do next. My mind is jittery and I can’t settle down. I can’t watch TV or read a book, or surf aimlessly online. I should reply to the people who want me to come in for an interview but that would make it all so real. The idea that I could get a job elsewhere means that I would have to give notice here. With things seemingly back on the track with me and Ward, I’m no longer eager to leave. We aren’t done. I don’t want to leave, and he’s already told me he doesn’t want me to go.

  If I feel this jittery, I can’t imagine how Ward feels. I don’t even have a deadline weighing on my shoulders. I don’t have an editor breathing down my neck, or a competitor’s success making me doubt myself.

  If this is difficult for me, how much harder must it be for Ward?

  I can’t do this any longer.

  I want to give in.

  I want to surprise him.

  I want to seduce him.

  And tease him in the process.

  Arousal surges through me like a freight train, hard and fast and heavy. The more I think of him, the more I want him.

  But first, I need something. I slip into his bedroom.

  * * *

  WARD

  * * *

  Insanity. That’s what this is. How can I be creative when my cock has other ideas?

  This environment isn’t conducive to writing and editing a book. That’s what having a housekeeper such as Mari is like. I need Freya again. Life was so much less complicated at home.

  Mari’s gone to bed, and I was prepared for us to sit and talk for longer. I want her, I crave her, but I can hold back, and if that was all she wanted, to talk and do nothing else, I would have happily agreed. But leaving me like that, as if she can’t bear to be around me, that’s another level of headfuck I can do without.

  Eager to overcome the mounting frustration, I settle down at my desk and go through the printed-out chapters of my manuscript. My heart isn’t in it, but the clock is ticking. I told Rob that he would have these last week. And last week I told him he would have them the week before that.

  Even he can see that I’ve stalled again. Exhaling slowly, as if I’m about to prepare for a marathon, I pick up my pen and start to read.

  And I hate every single word I read.

  It’s always like this. I hate what I’ve written. So I get to work, scribbling notes in the margins, crossing out lines and dialog and prose that is stilted. Words I don’t like and putting question marks over things that don’t make sense.

  How can my manuscript still be so messy when I’ve rewritten each chapter so meticulously? I read another page and leave more ugly red lines.

  “Why so much red? It can’t be that bad.”

  I look up to find Mari staring down at me. She’s wearing my satin robe, the one I used to wear a long time ago.

  I didn’t even hear her come in, and seeing her dressed like that suddenly gets me hot, as if a wildfire has spread all over my body. My cock stands up elated.

  “You … had … things … to do,” I say, offering up a lame-ass reply. I stare at my robe, and my initial instinct is to tear it off her. I don’t need to wonder why she’s here, because that look in her eyes, coupled with her new choice of attire already tells me.

  “I’ve done them all.” Her mood is playful, her voice is flirty.

  I throw down my pen. “I’m not making progress,” I say wearily, and there will be no further attempt at any progress, not if she’s going to stand there dressed in that. “It’s hard.”

  She struts over to my side, pushes my chair back and stands in between my legs, before lifting her knee and resting it on the small area of the chair between my legs. Her hand goes straight to my cock. “It is hard.”

  My brain fogs over. My mouth stops working. I stiffen further.

  “I love what you’re wearing,” I manage to say. Her hand squirrels into my sweatpants, and she strokes me over the fabric of my boxer briefs. I stutter out a breath, the sensation so unexpected, it sucks the air right out of my lungs. “You don’t have to ...”

  “I’m not here for you,” she tells me. “I missed this.” She plucks me loose from my boxers and clasps my dick in her hand. I feel like I could explode right now. But she begins to stroke, gently at first
, then slightly harder. My chest constricts, the air in my lungs is inadequate. Her strokes get longer, her grasp harder, and each time she reaches the end, she glides her thumb over my tip, making me jerk because it feels so, so, so damn good.

  My head falls back. I have dreamed about this temptress for weeks. I’ve missed her. I’ve needed her, I prayed she would visit me, would tend to me, but I never expected this.

  When I next look down, she’s on her knees, her lips sliding up and down, taking me deeper each time. I fist my hands in her hair, scared of letting go, scared of making myself so vulnerable.

  * * *

  MARI

  * * *

  He’s at my mercy. Pinned in his chair, vulnerable and wanting me. I’ve surprised him completely because I’ve never seen his cock stand to attention so fast.

  I slide my lips slowly over him, taking in his entire length slow, slow, slowly. Animal moans fall from his lips. He jerks in the chair. It empowers me each time I hear him grunt and groan.

  “Ma…ri,” he hisses, grabbing my hair, pushing it away from my face as he watches me work on him.

  I’m going to take him to the edge. Drive him delirious. I love that I can make him feel like this and I take my time pleasuring him with my mouth, needing him to feel for me what I feel for him. Wanting him to want me, this man whom I have tamed and can now claim as my own. Any moment now, he’s going to come in my mouth. That’s not what I want. I need him buried deep inside me, but I keep tipping him closer to that beautiful edge.

  “Stop …” he bites out. “I’m going to …” He tries to move my mouth away, but my lip suction is too strong. It’s instant, the consequences my actions have. I can make him writhe and moan. He’s almost there, I can feel it. I almost don’t want to stop, but I force my lips off him, then wipe my mouth.

  His breathing is fast and furious, his head lowered. I stand up slowly, wanting him to see me. Placing my finger under his chin, I lift his face then open the robe, his robe, and reveal my nakedness.