by Lena Skye
“Scott…” she whispered, touching his face as he lay beside her on the floor, his eyes moving over all of her.
He silenced her with a sweet kiss, moving above her and spreading her legs with his. In moments his desire for her swept over him, and he entered her, gently and carefully at first, but as they began to move together, he began to drive himself deeper and more fully into her, making her cling to him as she cried out in pleasure.
Her body tensed over and over, as one orgasm bound her in its intensity, only for another to do the same a few minutes later. Scott’s hunger for her only seemed to grow as they made love; it was as if the more he had of her, the more of her he needed, and he found both insatiable hunger and complete satisfaction in burying himself in her body.
Their passion culminated and wrestling together, crying out in ecstasy, he finally came, flooding her with every ounce of his orgasm. He rested his head on her shoulder and they held one another as their bodies began to relax and their breath came back to them slowly.
He sighed with exhaustion, rolling to his side to be beside her and hold her close to him.
“I was right. That was as incredible as it looked.” He smiled as he leaned forward and kissed her.
She grinned at him and kissed him in return. “It’s always incredible with you. Every time. Even just thinking about it takes my breath away.”
He smiled at her and touched his finger to her cheek. “It’s like that for me too.” His voice was sincere. She felt a tug in her heart and reached her hand up to his as he brushed his fingers over her skin. There was something that had been on her mind, hurting her heart a little, and she knew that the time had come to bring it up to him.
“Scott, I really love what’s happening between us, but there’s something that I feel we should talk about.” She searched his eyes and he looked at her curiously.
“What is it?” he asked softly. They hadn’t had any serious talks up to that point. It had been foreplay and fun, steam and smiles, laughs and stories, but no serious talks.
She drew in a deep breath. “Well, we have this fantastic… bond… together, but it’s only when I’m here. We never go out together anywhere. We don’t do anything outside of your home.
Every time we’ve ever been together, it’s been right here. I feel like we should be exploring more together outside of your house… outside of your bed.” She held what was left of her breath and waited, watching him, hoping to gauge his response.
He sighed heavily and looked away from her, curling his fingers into hers. “I understand what you’re saying, and I get that. I do. It isn’t really as easy as just going out, though. You and I can be ourselves here; we have no one watching us, or judging us… there’s no one in our way. We can have each other with no repercussions or problems.
Out there… well, it’s different out there. I’m constantly in the public eye. I’m constantly in the media. I don’t know if you really understand that, but everything that I do is subject to public scrutiny. If I was a regular guy, then yeah, we could go out and be together, and no one would really care or pay any attention to us.
Unfortunately, that’s not who I am. I have a duty to the team and to the public to uphold a certain kind of image. You and I don’t really fit into that image together as a couple in public. Do you see what I mean?” He looked at her imploringly.
She frowned and knitted her brow. “So what’s the problem? Are you ashamed of me? Are you just trying to hand me some kind of excuse because you don’t want to be around me in public?”
He shook his head and his tone grew serious. “No! No, it’s not that at all. It’s nothing like that. I wouldn’t really care what the public thinks, as far as I’m concerned for my own self, but it isn’t just me that I’m thinking of. I’m part of something bigger than myself. I’m part of a team. I’m a public figure. Of course I’m not ashamed of you. I wish I could take you out and be in public with you. It’s just not that easy, though. There’s a lot more than just the two of us to consider. Can’t you understand that?”
She pushed herself up and leaned on her hand, looking down at him through narrowed eyes. “So I’m just good enough for you to have in your bed and in your house, and I’m good enough to do all of this work here for you, but because I don’t fit the mold of what everyone else thinks you should have or do, then I’m just not good enough to have on your arm in front of everyone. I get it.” Her voice went dangerously sharp.
With another sigh, he sat up beside her and looked directly in her dark eyes. “You’re wrong about that. That’s not how it is, and I don’t want you to think that. Please don’t think that. I’m not using you!” He sounded adamant.
“Yes you are!” she snapped at him with a shake of her head. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation! All this time I thought you really cared about me! I thought I mattered to you and that we were actually building something together here! Now I can see what’s really happening, and I just can’t believe this.
You don’t want me for anything more than just some fun in your sheets!” She launched herself up from the floor and snatched her clothes up with her. “I’m not doing this. If you think for one minute that I’m going to sit around here and let you use me behind closed doors while you parade around in your pretty little life, and then act like you don’t even know who I am, you have another think coming. I’m worth having, Scott. I’m worth being with and being taken seriously; worth being cared about. I’m sure as hell nothing to be ashamed of!”
She pulled her clothes on as he scrambled to his feet. Raising his voice, he scowled darkly at her. “That’s not what’s happening here! You’re turning this around! You’re turning all of it around! Don’t start a fight that doesn’t need to even happen! I do care about you, and I love what we have together, all right? I’m just telling you that we can’t take it public, and that’s all! You have to try to understand!”
Naomi didn’t say another word, and she refused to look at him. Closing the button on her skirt, she stomped over to the dresser and grabbed her purse before going to the door. With a sharp turn, she glared hotly at him over her shoulder.
“Scott Thompson, this is the last time that you and I are ever going to be together. I’m not about to put up with all your games. I don’t care what you call it, but that’s what it is. That’s what you’re doing with me. I’m not one to play games. We’re done. This isn’t going to happen with us ever again.
As far as the work that I’m doing here, I’ll finish it as fast as I can, but I’m going to insist that as a professional courtesy, you let me finish all of it when you aren’t home, so that I don’t have to see you. After it’s all finished, that will be it for us, and you’ll never have to see me again, or worry about anyone in your precious public seeing us together, because there won’t be any chance at all of it happening.”
With that, she turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door bitterly behind her. Scott grumbled angrily and planted his hands on his bare hips, standing alone in the room staring at the door, wondering how such a beautiful afternoon had suddenly turned into a disaster.
He cared a great deal for Naomi, and he didn’t want to see her go, but there was no way that he could take her into the public as a partner in a relationship with him. He wished deeply that she could understand that, but he knew that it was something she wasn’t ever going to be able to comprehend. Frustration burned through him, and he leaned down to pick up his clothes, telling himself that it was probably for the best that she was gone, and wishing that he could believe it.
Naomi closed her car door hard behind her as she sat in it, and struggled against the emotions that were welling up in her. As she drove down the winding streets out of Beverly Hills, she tried to hold back the torrent of anger and shame that threatened to overtake her.
The further she got from his home, the more the pain in her heart swelled, until at last she could no longer hold it in and hot tears spilled over her thick black
eyelashes and down her dark cheeks. She wiped at them, pushing them away, just as she was trying to push away the ache in her heart, telling herself that she was better than what Scott was trying to do to her; she was not a woman to be used and tossed aside like trash, worthless and discarded.
Naomi hadn’t even thought about where it was that she was going, and before she realized it, she found herself in a parking lot at a hidden area of beach on the Pacific Ocean. It was a place that she went to in her childhood and in her college years when she needed some peace and a safe place to heal hurts that life extolled to her.
Blinking back more tears, she climbed out of her car and headed for the golden sand and the big swelling waves that crashed in to shore among scattered rocks and boulders where the earth met the sea.
It had started simply with Scott. She’d been referred to him by the mother of one of his old friends, and she had been excited enough when he had come into the design firm and talked to her about hiring her to redecorate his home. She’d known that he was a sports celebrity, but she didn’t follow football, and she had no real concept of just how famous he was when he had decided to hire her.
He’d told her once that her professionalism with him was one of the reasons why he had chosen her above other firms to decorate his home. That professional relationship had changed swiftly when she had begun working for him in the privacy of his home.
At first it went the way that all of her jobs had gone; she was in the home, she decorated and worked, and he came and went as she did so. Things changed when he began to spend a good deal more time around her when she was working; they talked and got to know one another.
In what had truly been a short time he had talked her into staying over at his home for dinner a couple of nights a week until one night when dinner and wine became blazing passion in his bed and that was followed by breakfast and coffee.
She had felt a little guilty at first; it was always of the utmost importance to her to maintain a professional rapport with her clients, but there was no denying the attraction between them, and there was no denying the desire that they were both overwhelmed with, and wanted more than anything to give in to.
One time with him and it changed everything between them. Neither of them could stay away from the other, and both of them wanted each other in so many ways, all of the time. She had believed as her physical desire for him grew so much stronger, and her heart began to feel so much for him, that he wanted her just as much, and that he was growing to care for her as much as she was for him.
She realized, as she walked slowly through the warm afternoon sand down the beach, that he had never had any strong feelings for her; they had never been there. If they had been there, she told herself, she would never have had to ask him about going out in public with her. It would have happened naturally. He would have wanted to take her out with him.
He would have wanted to be a couple with her, he would have been proud enough of her to share his relationship with her so that everyone knew about it, and it was public. He’d never have been ashamed of her. He’d never have wanted to hide her from the world, no matter what the world thought.
It was a sobering discovery to realize that in his eyes, she wasn’t worth being with. It hit her heart like a wrecking ball, and she wept again as she lowered herself down into the warm sand, and watched the sea rushing in through salt teary eyes.
Her cell phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket, wiping off more tears from her eyes. She saw that it was a text message from her best friend Eva. Eva wanted to know if they could meet for coffee, and Naomi felt as if she had suddenly been thrown a rope that might pull her out of the abyss she had found herself in.
She texted Eva back and asked her to meet her in half an hour. Eva answered that she would. Naomi walked along the beach back to her car and let a deep breath go in an attempt to calm herself. She needed to talk with someone about Scott and get a different perspective, a fresh opinion on all of it. Her best friend was perfect and would be up to the task.
Half an hour later, Naomi sat waiting at a small café table in a little coffee shop. Snippets of quiet conversations and soft music filled the air around her. She tried not to be impatient as she waited, and it wasn’t long after she had ordered her cup of coffee that Eva walked through the door of the café, looking around for her, and waved when she caught Naomi’s eye.
Eva was dark-skinned and round everywhere; her black hair was rounded around her circular face, and her body was round, nearly from the ground up. She brightened when she saw Naomi and lifted her hand to wave at her as she made her way to the table.
A server came to her and got her coffee order, and left them. Eva made herself comfortable and then eyed Naomi carefully.
“What’s bothering you?” she asked pointedly. “I can always tell. You’ve been crying. I can see it.”
Naomi’s shoulders fell and her eyes dropped from Eva’s gaze, falling to her cup of coffee as she stirred it.
“I’ve had a hard day. Something bad happened that I need to talk with you about. I need your advice,” she admitted quietly.
Eva leaned forward and closed her hand over Naomi’s. “That’s what I’m here for. So tell me all about it.”
Naomi pursed her full lips for a moment and began. “Well, I guess I have to start by telling you that I’ve kind of been seeing someone… I guess.”
Eva’s dark brown eyes opened wide in surprise. “Seeing someone? What on earth are you talking about? Why is this the first time that I’m hearing about this? Who is he?”
“I can’t tell you who he is. He’s adamant about keeping up his anonymity. He wouldn’t want me telling anyone about us. Also, I’m sorry that this is the first time you’re hearing about it; I wasn’t exactly sure if there was anything to tell because I’m not sure if we’re…” she trailed off and frowned.
Eva lowered her brows somewhat. “Not sure if you’re what?”
With a shrug and a guilty sigh, Naomi raised her eyes back up to meet Eva’s. “I’m not sure if we really were seeing each other. It’s not like anything else I’ve ever done. So… there’s this guy. I am working on his house. I’m redecorating it. He and I kind of started to get to know each other and things kind of warmed up between us, and then… then things….” she trailed off and swallowed.
“Things got hot?” Eva offered.
“Yeah.” Naomi’s heart picked up its pace. “Things got really hot.”
“So what’s the problem?” Eva asked curiously.
“Well, we have only spent time together at his house. I go there to work and he’s there… and we… well we wind up in his bed most of the time. It’s been going on about six weeks so far. I’ve really started to like him.
I was there today, working, and he showed up and as usual things went the way that they always do with us. We wound up in each other’s arms on the floor of the room I was decorating.” She frowned and traced the tip of her finger around the rim of her coffee mug as she spoke.
“I told him afterward that I wanted to start seeing him outside of his house. You know… to start actually dating and really being a couple, rather than the two of us just hooking up at his house. We’ve never been anywhere together. We’ve never done anything together. I feel like I’m not getting even half of what I should be getting from him with just the sex. It’s the weirdest situation. It’s never been like this for me before. I’ve always had relationships that are traditional. I meet the guy, we start dating, things heat up… and the rest is history until the inevitable breakup. This one has been totally different right from the start.
So, we were lying there and I told him that I was thinking I’d like for us to do things together outside of the house. You know, dating. Like normal people.” She sighed heavily and picked up her spoon, stirring more cream into the dark brew in her mug.
Eva frowned and cocked her head to one side. “So what’s the big deal?”
“He doesn’t want to date me.” Naomi ans
wered her in a low voice.
“Doesn’t want to… wait, he wants to sleep with you but he doesn’t want to date you? That’s awful! Why doesn’t he want to date you?” Eva was completely indignant.
Naomi leaned in a little closer to her friend and lowered her voice. “He’s a sports celebrity. He wants to keep a low dating profile. He says he has his public image to look out for. He doesn’t want to be seen with me in public. He wants to be on his own and do his own thing in public, and I can’t be a part of that. He said that he has to think of his team and his career. He can’t be with me in public, but he still wants to be with me in private in his home.”
Eva’s eyes narrowed into this slits. “So he wants to screw you, but he doesn’t want to take you out and date you like a real girlfriend?” It was clear from her sharp tone that she didn’t approve of the situation at all.
“That’s what he said, and it bothered me so much that I told him we were through. I said that I would finish the work on his house, but I wasn’t going to be with him in a personal capacity ever again. I told him that we were done. I was so angry with him. I left, and I gave myself some time to think about it, but I’m just a little unsure. I mean, what if I was too hasty? What if he has a good point about being careful with his public image?” She looked at her friend imploringly.
Eva shook her head adamantly. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not a girl for hire, Naomi. You are a classy, strong, intelligent, beautiful woman, and you deserve to be with a man who knows that, and who wants you. You definitely don’t need to be with anyone who doesn’t want you except for sex. He’s using you! I don’t care what kind of celebrity he is! That’s not how a man should treat a woman.
He shouldn’t be ashamed of you! He should be proud of you! He should be out there showing you off, not hiding you behind closed doors and just using you for a piece of ass! What kind of a bastard is he? I wouldn’t put up with that kind of crap for a minute. You absolutely did the right thing leaving. I’m glad that you did it. I’m glad that you put an end to your relationship with him.
