by Multiple
All I knew was that he hadn’t responded in four days. Four lonely nights. Where was he?
Throughout dinner I picked at my chicken, holding my phone against my thigh so I’d know when it vibrated. My father and Michael talked, but as usual my father didn’t say a word to me. My mother told me about another fundraiser she was working on. I nodded, bobble-headed, and murmured my assent when she asked for my help. I told her what she wanted to hear and she told me what she wanted me to say and so it was a quiet, happy dinner.
Afterwards, my father invited Michael into his study. I was left to pace the sitting room alone, turning my phone back and forth between my fingers. I wanted to send him waves of texts, begging to know why he’d stopped responding, but I hadn’t quite crossed over into crazy territory. After all, I had a boyfriend. And he had lots of girlfriends. And he didn’t even know my real name.
So why did it feel like our pretend relationship was somehow in trouble? This was crazy. The fact that I could feel my heart beating against my breastbone told me as much. I hadn’t felt anything in so long that I knew I was in trouble.
Michael was gone for fifteen minutes before I couldn’t take pacing and pleading telepathically with Oliver to call me anymore. I went to my father’s study, intent to bust in and demand some attention like a childish little girl. The door was cracked a fraction so I caught the word “marriage” when I approached.
I stopped, hand hovering a second away from knocking.
“You’re sure you want to marry my daughter?”
“Yes, sir.” Michael sounded so proud. Like a puppy.
My father was silent as he poured alcohol into a crystal tumbler, clinking ice against something expensive.
“I believe you think so. Probably because you think I’ll be able to help you with your career. That’s fine. Marriages have been arranged for less. But I must express my doubts.”
What was this? My father’s words quickened my already erratic heart and I leaned closer. Did he want to protect me from a marriage with Michael? Why? I thought he liked Michael.
“You have doubts about how I feel?” Michael asked. “Because Avery’s great. She’s very smart. We have a nice time together.”
“No, you misunderstand me. I believe you when you say you care about her. What I mean is, I think you should marry a better matched young lady.”
I froze. Took a half step back.
No. My god. No.
He wasn’t protecting me.
He was protecting Michael.
“You don’t want me to marry her?”
“I want you to choose someone else.”
I took a step back. Then another.
This wasn’t happening.
No. It was happening. Of course it was happening. The day my father had to punish me for embarrassing him in public had ruined any good will he had for me. I had stopped being his Ladybug a long time ago and was now the girl he would do no favors for.
I didn’t want to hear anymore, so I turned and ran. I grabbed my purse off the hall table and dashed out into the dark and the rain without any notion where I was going.
It was warm for a late summer rain, and the drops slicking down my arms and soaking through my awful dress felt surprisingly comforting. My heels caught on concrete beneath the puddles and after a block of slipping and sliding I took them off and carried them the rest of the way. The rough pavement bruised the bottom of my stockinged feet but I didn’t slow down or look back or doubt myself.
I was so tired of the Alston rules and regulations. I couldn’t stomach a lifetime of Michael Gregory and a disappointed father. Maybe my father had inadvertently done me a favor. Maybe someday I’d get to thank him for it. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
I wanted color and noise. I wanted stars and galaxies and screaming orgasms.
I wanted Oliver.
I dialed his number without thinking. It rang once.
“Jane,” he answered quietly, cautiously. “I’m a little busy right--”
“I can’t do it. I can’t say yes.”
“Where are you?” he interrupted. “Are you alright?”
“I’m in Pine Grove, West of South River. Heading for Washington Bridge.”
“Like, on foot?”
I tucked my arms around my stomach. “Yes.”
“I’m on my way. Don’t move. I’ll be there in less than fifteen minutes.”
The waiting was the worst. I shivered against the guardrail and let the water rise to my ankles. Few cars past and none of them slowed. It felt like hours went by before a black car pulled onto the bridge, crept forward an inch at a time before stopping where I huddled.
And then he stepped out and he was as beautiful as I imagined he would be. Brown hair as dark as espresso beans. He was tall, a five o’clock shadow messing up his otherwise neat appearance. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark but they didn’t blink when they found me. God, he was so young. He had a devil-may-care face, strong jaw but a soft mouth, soft eyes. Pretty features but an intense, hard gaze. The kind of pretty they put on underwear ads.
He’d been wearing a tux, but the necktie was gone and the white button down was loose at the collar. I wondered if I interrupted someone taking it off him. The thought made my heart sink into my belly. I wanted to bang on my chest and remind it that I’d given it away a long time ago, so no use getting misty eyed over a strange man now.
He stopped in front of his car and we stared at each other a few feet apart. Miles apart. Inches apart. We were so close and so far away and all I wanted to do was bury my face into his chest and sob like a little girl. His eyes swept my body, from my bare feet up to my knotty knees and flaccid, soaked dress. I shook from cold and something else.
Touch me, Oliver, I begged silently. Touch me now or so help me god…
He crossed the distance between us in two long strides and before I could protest he grabbed me into his arms and wrapped himself around me, tucking my head into his chest and protecting me for a few moments from the rain and the wind.
He was warm all over, even as the rain soaked through his clothes and sopped his hair. He smelled like cloves and expensive cologne and cherry cordials. I touched his chest through his shirt and felt his heart beating so hard it sounded like it might break through. Fluttering. Crashing. I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to a cacophony of emotion thundering inside him.
“So you are kind of like Prince Charming,” I murmured against his body.
“Only for tonight.” If his face was a stranger to me, his voice was as familiar as my own. I pressed in closer and he tightened his hold on me.
“That’s enough.”
“I doubt that.” He sighed. “I’ll take you home. Unless you want to go somewhere else.”
I lifted my chin to gaze into his strange and oddly familiar face. My dreams aligned with the reality of him, matched my imagination, made my dreams more colorful. “Do I get to pick?”
Oliver hesitated and withdrew just enough to meet my eyes. “Just for tonight, Jane.”
“Then I want to go home with you.”
He flashed a smile I felt in my knees. “I thought you might say that.”
“It’s been a crap few days.”
“I’m sorry.” He pushed strands of hair from my eyes and very tentatively kissed my forehead. “Let’s get you out of the rain.”
We were silent in the car except for the constant dripping from our clothes onto leather seats. He drove with controlled speed, shifting in between cars and along empty streets. He looked at me a few times and if I wasn’t mistaken, he looked nervous.
Was this really going to happen? Was I really going home with Oliver, my Oliver, to feel and taste and touch colors? All the colors?
I swallowed and looked out the window.
He lived in South River like I did but on the other side, the nice side, where the condos rose high in the sky, surrounded by pretty restaurants and sidewalk cafes. My bookstore was on this side of town. He pulled into a parki
ng garage, wound through the labyrinth of European cars. His breathing was quick and his thoughts looked troubled. I wanted to ask him a million questions, but he didn’t look like he wanted to answer any. Not yet.
“Wait here,” he said when he parked and got out. He made his way to the passenger side and opened my door for me. He held his hand out and I took it and he squeezed and I squeezed. I felt like a teenager alone with the handsome, popular student. I was so aware of how I looked, but there was no helping it now.
We had to let go when we got to the elevator. A doorman looked at Oliver’s key card and opened the elevator for us. We traveled up up up in silence, but he placed one hand on my back. I wanted him to look at me, and since he didn’t, I looked out the window into the rainy streets until we were too high to see them properly as more than a series of colored lights.
“I bet this is a great view during the day,” I said softly. My breath fogged the glass. “My apartment faces a bar.”
Oliver looked up from his phone, then immediately put it away. “There are bars in Pine Grove?”
I laughed. It sounded a little strained. “No. My parents live in Pine Grove. I live in South River. The dodgy side.”
He nodded faintly. “That makes more sense. I have a friend who owns a bar on that side.”
“I’ve never actually gone inside the bar across the street, but they play good music.”
More silence. How was it we could talk for hours and hours with a town between us and now that our hips touched, we could barely make small talk?
Maybe this had been a mistake.
“Here we are,” he said as the elevator dinged and came to a slow stop. The doors hushed open and we were greeted by another doorman. The hallway closed in around us with thick carpet, fresh flowers, and striped wallpaper. This was wealth, this padded silence.
When he unlocked his door, a small light just inside automatically turned on.
The carpet was white and thick and I felt like such a troll in my drippy dress and dirty shoes. I slipped out of them and shoved them onto the welcome mat before they tramped city muck in with me.
“I’d better call my parents and let them know I’m alive.”
He nodded but didn’t look at me and disappeared into his apartment, leaving me standing there in the tiny front hallway alone. The conditioned air made my wet skin prickle as I dialed.
“Avery! My God, what happened to you?”
“I had to go, mom, sorry. I didn’t feel well.”
“Michael was beside himself. He went looking for you. Where are you?”
“Safe. I didn’t want to bother any of you so I called a friend. Just this once, will you not ask any questions and just tell Michael I’m fine and not to worry? Please? Please mom. I just…I just need this one favor.”
Genevieve was quiet on the other line. It was like everyone in my life who normally had no trouble filling the silence with words had run out of them.
“You’re ok? You’re not kidnapped?”
I smiled, tired suddenly. “I’m not kidnapped.”
“Ok. I’ll tell Michael you’ll call him tomorrow.”
We hung up. The apartment was quiet as I followed the direction Oliver had gone. There breakfast counter and his kitchen, dim lights above the stove, leather padded stools and stainless steel. Pretty much as I’d pictured it.
I found him in the living room sitting in his white leather chair. The one he’d sat in on Saturday when he’d brought me screaming his name in pleasure. It overlooked a breathtaking view of South River, the Giovanni tower only a few blocks away, glittering like an icicle when lightning flashed.
He’d shucked his wet jacket into the couch, rolled his sleeves and poured himself a drink. He looked messy and handsome. So out of my league. I felt frumpy and lopsided and drowned. Something about the way he sat, arms on his thighs, amber liquid sloshing in his glass told me not to come any closer. I stopped a few feet away and waited.
“Everything alright?” he asked quietly into his glass.
I nodded, not that he was looking. “Yes. Are you? You don’t seem…”
“How would you know?” he asked as he looked up. God, his eyes were so lovely. Hazel and gold and green and big under full dark lashes. I’d pictured him with every eye color and every hair color, but I’d never pictured them quite so vibrant. He clipped his tone, sharpened each word with perfect enunciation. “You don’t know how I usually seem. Maybe this is normal Oliver.”
I hesitated before taking a tiny step forward. His carpet felt delightful beneath my toes. I wondered what it would feel like naked against it, sunk into its plushness?
“Yes I do. I know you a little bit. Enough to know when there’s something wrong. I can leave if that’s what you want.”
“Leave?”
He tasted the word, like a question and not a question at the same time. He looked into his glass for the answer, swished the shot one last time before tipping back and swallowing it. He set the glass down hard on the table next to him, stood, and conquered the space between us before I had time to inhale. Oliver took my face in his hands, cupped my cheeks and chin and brought those lovely eyes down onto mine.
“No,” he said finally, then caught my shock with a kiss that lit me on fire from navel to mouth.
Hard full lips melted against mine, hard and hungry tempered by a struggle for control. His taste was familiar and new, both strange and intimate. I could feel his hands shake just touching my face, smoothing his thumbs along my cheeks until his fingers slid into my hair.
Fireworks exploded behind my eyes, color and heat and brilliant light. My hands tingled, down to my naval, between my legs, to my toes. Wonderful explosions went off all over my body and I could feel him everywhere.
I met him halfway on my tiptoes and caught the open collar of his shirt in both my hands for balance. This. This was how I’d imagined his mouth, soft and needy and barely restrained.
Oliver slowed his hunger and lingered with our lips just touching, brushing when we gasped for breath. The tip of his tongue dragged across my bottom lip before he nipped it playfully and I opened my eyes to find him gazing down at me with the heady, bright excitement of a boy getting everything he wanted.
He slipped one hand from my hair and very suddenly gripped the nape of my neck so hard I gasped and fell into him. He held me aloft there, not letting me drop my heels back to the floor. While his face stayed calm and gentle, his grip hardened, forcing a moan of reluctant acquiescence from me.
I held steady against him as he lowered a kiss to my parted mouth. His tongue prodded inside, forced himself inside my mouth until he was licking at me and toying with my tongue. Very slowly he wound his other hand into my wet hair and pulled my head back until I was bent beneath him. It wasn’t gentle or loving but it still went straight between my legs. I moaned into his mouth and, encouraged, his kissed me harder.
Oliver kissed me for long minutes, hours, days. He burrowed inside of me, claimed me so thoroughly there would be no doubt who I’d given myself to. I slid the flat of my hands down his chest, beyond the opening in his shirt to the hard, damp skin. He was young and strong, shaped out of my most violent sexual dreams.
When he let me go I felt his loss immediately. He released me to my feet, my body already screaming its exhaustion and it had only been a kiss.
“My beautiful Jane,” he murmured a hairsbreadth above my upturned mouth.
“Oliver,” I begged, though I had no idea what I was begging him to do or give me. Everything. The world. Forever. It was all too much. I wanted too much.
He backed up and dropped into his chair, slouched low into the leather.
“Come here.” He swallowed and crooked a finger to me. “Take off your stockings.”
I thumbed the waistband and slid them down, nervous and excited as I peeled the wet material from my skin. I left them in a pile behind me as I came to him, taking a place between his spread knees.
Oliver caught his hands behind my kne
es, grazed the flat of his palm up the backs of my wide thighs until my dress came up and exposed nearly everything to him. Shaking, I pushed my hair out of my eyes and met his gaze before it lowered down, down, down.
Then he kissed the inside of my thighs reverently, so much like worship I almost couldn’t breathe. He nuzzled his nose against my plush skin and kissed me repeatedly there.
“You kept it,” he groaned. “You kept my name on your body.”
“I belong to you.” I blushed. “A little bit.”
“Tonight,” he warned in that dreadful, lovely voice. “Tonight you belong to me completely.”
He slipped his hands beneath my dress, hooked his thumbs under the waist of my panties and dragged them down my thighs. He let them go, let them pool at my feet. His hands returned to my legs, pressed them apart enough to fit a hand up along my thigh right to the heat of my sex. A breath separated his fingertips and my pussy. He leaned forward, I put my hands on his shoulders, and he touched…
I sucked in a hard breath and dug my hands into his shoulders. His thumb found my clit first, already slick and swollen from his kiss. He rubbed the flat of his thumb in hard little circles, holding my gaze the whole time, never blinking. His middle finger searched my sex, parted my lips and prodded forward. When he slid knuckle deep inside me without resistance, I almost collapsed to my knees.
“Oliver,” I whined, shaking. “Oh God.”
“Shhh,” he whispered, his breath coming in panting exhales. “I’ve been dreaming of touching you here for months. Do you know what I want to do to you?”
I did. I didn’t. My imagination was great but he had oceans of experience on me. I nodded. I shook my head.
“You do,” he said with a triumphant little grin. “You know what I want.”
“You want me to submit to you,” I said, hesitating. “You want to take me?”
“That, and?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I want to give you what you’ve begged me for all these months. You want your hair pulled. You want pain. You want undignified and beautiful forced between your legs.”
I died when he said those words. I nodded, mewling softly, gathering the hem of my dress in both hands as he prodded and screwed his fingers inside of me. I could feel my pleasure dripping against my thighs, slicking his hand in the most unladylike way. God, he’d barely touched me and I was ready to come screaming.
