by C. L. Donley
A contract-free day with Grayson.
He told her, right to her face, that he wanted to be with her.
For him, it was a Say Anything moment.
And she’d sliced him open.
She could see she had hurt him, and what’s worse, for about a second, it felt good.
And then… it didn’t.
He trailed blood all the way back to their room. And when he rolled over to sleep instead of to hold her and make love to her, she retreated to the palatial bathroom, turned on every jet there was, cranked her iPod speakers and cried her eyes out.
Somehow she’d slept, and when she finally woke up, it was almost noon.
She heard her phone buzz, and her heart jumped.
She knew it probably wasn’t Grayson, saying, “You were right, I’m coming to rescue you and sing more songs to you in a boat.”
But she liked the thought. She waited a few minutes before she checked.
It was his assistant, Bryan.
You? Me? Mimosas? He wrote.
She laughed.
She wondered why she hadn’t met Bryan until this trip and now she knew. He was tall dark and handsome, straight, and had one job in life which was to make Grayson’s life as smooth as possible. Grayson liked him because he wasn’t even tempted to take on a relationship that would impede his job performance. But lately Grayson was a little worried for him. He’d been his assistant for six years and refused to even let Grayson set him up.
Amara liked him because they could talk about their favorite subject, which was Grayson Davis.
She couldn’t really talk to her girls about him anymore, because without context their opinions were always extreme and, whatever the opposite of cathartic is. She couldn’t talk to Dale, because that was a can of worms she knew not to open anymore. Plus, she was starting to grow paranoid that they talked to each other about whatever she might’ve said to either of them.
So Bryan was a Godsend. He listened. He understood. Sometimes he actually had some good advice.
She sent him a message back.
Downstairs cafe in 30 mins.
“You got the day off today?” she began. She opted for a latte rather than a mimosa.
“No such thing as that, but no word from him today or yesterday,” Bryan answered.
“Is that unusual?”
“Since you? No.”
Amara smirked a little, though the words were starting to lose their impact.
“I’m all he needs to get by.” Amara joked flatly.
“You’re so low maintenance. I’m usually running around the city all day buying…stuff.”
“Weirdest thing you ever bought for a girlfriend. Go.”
“No contest,” he shook his head after he’d taken a drink, “that one goes to Kimberly Diamante, Autumn 2014, she wanted a burger and fries, blended into a smoothie.”
Amara shook with laughter. “You just made that up.”
“I didn’t,” he simply said.
Amara couldn’t stop. “You even talk like him.”
“No, he talks like me,” he clarified as he sipped his bright yellow mimosa.
“Ah. So who was he talking like before you, then?” Amara asked.
“You wanna guess?” he raised an eyebrow.
Amara took a stab in the dark.
“…Dale?”
“Dude! Dude! Dude!”
Amara was dying again.
Bryan liked Amara. He’d only known her through Grayson’s requests for her, at first. When he found out that she was black he was pretty surprised, and even more surprised by the way he’d seen them together. It was as though the sun and moon had become human beings. Amara wasn’t as hungry for PDA as some of his other mistresses, but anyone could tell they were unapologetically right for each other. And when he saw Grayson freely laughing and smiling he thought he’d entered a parallel universe. Yet she’d seemed sad on the plane, sad in the car on nights after dinner. She’d lasted longer than any of his previous affairs, and Grayson seemed pretty attached to her. Yet she’d divulged to him that she was leaving in two days, right after the summit, and that Grayson already knew. He feared for what his job would turn into after she left.
“So you’ve got access to his accounts, right?” she confirmed.
“I do,” he said, giving her a sideways look.
“Dude,” she smiled. “I need you to do me a solid.”
“I’m not going to get fired, am I?”
“Definitely not,” she said, “but I need you to take me shopping.”
* * *
By the time Amara returned she had a few hours to change before dinner.
She was a little worried that she’d shopped so long, and found so many things she was unwilling to put back. Goodwill prices these most certainly were not. She told herself she would just buy enough good quality pieces to mix and match, but when the cashier rattled off the total she thought about how horrified her friends and family members would be if they knew what the damage was. Bryan had handed off the card to the cashier with a raised eyebrow. “I see you’re starting to get your sea legs,” he said.
Amara entered the elevator, scanned her key card and pushed the penthouse button.
She had a feeling Grayson would say something similar if he saw her right now.
But he wouldn’t be back yet. Not for at least another hour.
Her afternoon with Bryan was a welcome distraction. She decided that when they got to dinner tonight, she was going to apologize and make it right. More importantly, she was going to take him up on his offer to join her.
So what, he was a hot mess. What choice did she have?
If he really did want her, she was going to be wanted, by him, and that’s all there was to it.
The room was completely dark when the doors opened. The shades had been drawn.
What the hell, housekeeping?
She saw a figure on the bed and frantically felt around the room walls for a light.
“Grayson??” Amara said, startled.
He wasn’t asleep. He sat up.
He hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. She’d never seen him with stubble.
Who was she kidding. She was never leaving this man.
He was smiling devilishly.
“You’re wearing jeans,” he said.
She’d found the perfect pair and she couldn’t bear to take them off once she tried them on. She dropped her bags and smiled at him fondly.
“You like?” she flirted.
“I do,” he laughed.
She did a 12 point model turn for him. She was wearing a graphic shirt that was cut-off at the midriff.
T-shirt and jeans, just like she’d wanted.
“They’re doing a 90’s retro thing here right now,” she added.
“Come here,” he said.
Like Pavlov’s dogs, all systems were a go.
She sauntered over to him at the edge of the bed and he put his prickly face on her belly button. It tickled. She put her hands in his thick, now slightly too long hair. Suddenly he spun her around. She felt him grabbing her jeans at the waistband and then moving his hands across the taught fabric covering her backside. It was the stuff of dreams, he thought.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” he said, and Amara laughed.
“Shall I take them off?” she offered.
“Do whatever you want,” he said.
“Whatever I want?” she turned back around to face him.
He was looking up at her. He nodded.
He was so adorable when he nodded. She thought back to the first time she’d seen it, and it seemed like it was a hundred years ago.
“I want… to wait,” she said.
He plummeted back to the bed as if he’d been shot in slow motion.
“Until when,” he deadpanned.
“Not telling,” she teased.
Grayson groaned as if he was a toddler being told it was bedtime.
“Dinner’s in an hour, you big baby, what could
we possibly get done before then,” Amara announced on the way to the bathroom.
“Plenty,” she heard a muffled yell through the bathroom door.
Dinner was… tense. In the best way.
Bryan had made a reservation at Solon, a Michelin starred bistro that had come highly recommended. The venue used to be an old ballroom and theater. It housed large tables that had a gorgeous view of the city on one side, and a view of the magic brewing in the kitchen on the other. They were seated in a large sectioned off area facing the water. Some of the attendees of the summit had also been dining there and they invited Grayson and his companion to join.
Amara pretended not to notice while Grayson kept his eyes glued to her. Other than a solitary arm reclined on the seat behind her, he was astutely keeping his hands off her, so as to follow orders as closely as possible.
“Your name has several meanings, do you know?” A conference member from Mumbai offered to Amara at the table.
“I was always told that it meant ‘beloved,’” Amara said.
“It can,” the man continued. “But it can also mean bitter.”
“Latin,” Grayson confirmed.
“An African girl in school told me it meant ‘grace’ in her language.”
“No mystery behind my name,” Grayson chimed in.
“What does it mean?” asked Amara.
“Son of the steward.”
“Gray’s son,” said the man from Mumbai.
“The name could’ve meant ‘turds,’ and my mom still would’ve picked it because it sounded pretty,” Grayson scoffed.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you talk about your mom,” Amara began.
“And you won’t,” he answered shortly.
Amara’s smiling countenance waned.
The other conference attendee graciously excused himself from the conversation as the two sat in silence.
“Is that supposed to entice me to delve further into you or something?”
“No.”
“Because it started off as mysterious, and now I just think the more people actually take the time to love you, the more you hate them.”
Grayson sighed. “Do you want to have sex or do you want to start a fight?”
“Why can’t I do both?” Amara protested.
“Because you can never recover after a fight,” he retorted.
“I can never recover?”
“No. I say one off-color, yet true, thing and you’re crying in your bathtub all night.”
Amara’s body tingled with rage. “Ah,” she simply answered.
“Yeah. There, I did it again, I guess? Which means no sex.”
“If you say so. It’s your dime, remember?” Amara replied stoically.
“I’ve never forgotten.”
“Did you tell Dale about the contract?” she blurted.
So her mind was drifting to Dale no matter where they went in the world.
Grayson’s body language was rigid. He promptly excused himself from the table and walked out of the VIP area, out of Amara’s field of vision.
Amara was dizzy with frustration.
Should she go back to the hotel?
Should she just get on a plane and go home?
She had a profound sense that the money wasn’t going to happen, like having into fallen in a deep pit along a road and realizing you never told anyone where you were going.
A part of her felt weirdly ashamed that she seemed to be unable to suffer an emotional beating or two in exchange for a million dollars. Maybe the lifestyle had spoiled her, or maybe the man. But she sensed that she was not going to go any further. She was actually going to break this deal just shy of 48 hours.
She was going to say something to him tonight, and he surely was going to say something, and whatever it was, would sever whatever connection they had left.
Instead of going to look for him, she decided she would just go back to the hotel.
She got up from the table wordlessly, trying not to indicate that she was leaving for good, even though she’d taken all her belongings. She wasn’t in the mood for making up pleasant excuses.
She headed down the grand spiral staircase that indicated the old ballroom’s age, down to the ground floor lobby where she could contemplate whether to bother Bryan about the car or walk the moderate distance to the hotel.
But before she could make her way out the doors, she felt an arm grab her and pull her back behind the darkness of a long hallway, lit only by the glowing neon of the exit sign, and a sliver of moon that shown through the glass of the wooden exit door. There was an old-fashioned curtain in front of the threshold, and he drew it, shrouding them in darkness. She knew who it was, and she knew what he was doing.
What they were doing. About to do.
She was wearing a one-shoulder cornflower blue crepe dress with a slit down one side, and to him, she looked like some sort of delicious pie.
And she was mad at him. So he had work to do.
But sex was what he was good at. It was the work part that he liked.
Before she could object he was on his knees in front of her, hiking her dress up to her waist and sticking his head in her crotch. He found that she’d already been wet a long time. He let out a curse as he smirked and she grabbed his head by the hair, gently yet firmly.
“You think you’re hot shit now, don’t you?” she said.
He smiled without looking up at her, and a gust of cold air hit her thighs. She shed her high heels, and he was eye level to her sex.
“Just make me come, asshole,” she exhaled.
She watched by the silver of the moonlight as he basically made out with her body. He was kissing and licking and sucking, his head tilted and eyes closed, and his brow furrowed as if realizing he was in love, her left leg hiked up on his right shoulder. Amara was moaning and cursing like mad. Her hips began rocking, his fingertips dug into her flesh. She was close to coming and she abruptly grabbed him by the hair again and made him admit that hers was the best, until she came down enough for him to continue. She did this twice. At the third attempt his hand left her hip and she heard the unmistakable sound of him unbuckling his pants.
Did he really plan on getting off that easy, literally? The sound somehow gave her the fortitude to put off her own orgasm, though she was now at dangerous levels of arousal.
“Get up,” she said. Slowly he stood, wide-eyed at this pissed off/turned on Amara hybrid. Before she could give him another order he had a firm hold of her face in his hands as he gently kissed her. He kissed her until he’d coaxed her tongue to come out from its hiding place. Her hands went to his chest, looking for his skin under his blazer, under his shirt.
Then she pushed, and his lips broke suction from hers.
He looked in her eyes. He was wholly unsure what she was thinking and wondered if he was on thin ice. The frenzied sound of their breathing reverberated through the hallway. He was rock hard and throbbing, he wanted to peel her dress down to her waist but he didn’t dare move. He looked at her until her breathing had quieted and slowed.
Then she lowered her hands to his unfastened trousers, and his pulse was quickly on the rise again.
His left arm extended in front of him against the wall as Amara sunk to her knees. She undid the zip on his trousers and fished around his boxer briefs until she found a way to free his member effectively, indiscreetly. If they were caught there’d be no mistake what they were up to. Grayson’s other hand went to her jawline, elegant and pronounced in the scarce light of the glowing neon.
She was so, deliciously good at giving head; he seriously doubted that she was a novice at it.
Whatever. If he ever found the man he’d shake his hand.
She was being wickedly slow and deliberate about it, as though willing herself to be caught, and he let the tension she was brewing overtake him, though part of him knew he shouldn’t. The more she dared him, the less willing he would be to stop if someone walked in on them.
Finally he
had to suck in a slow breath and toss his dizzy head back. His head came back down but it took another second or two for his eyes to roll back in place. He whispered vulgar encouragements to her and she responded with what she had available of her stuffed mouth.
With all his faults, Amara couldn’t help the searing sensation in her heart whenever they were intimate. This was the man of her dreams. And in her dreams she did whatever he liked, whenever and wherever he liked it. For making her dreams a reality she felt she owed him a tremendous debt. That she was privy to him, to his faults at all, was sublime education however harsh, and he almost always chased one of those lessons with mind-numbing pleasure such as this, divulging how much he wanted her, how much he liked what she did to him.
She slurped and gulped until she was writhing in front of him. Now he had a handful of her locs gathered up in his hand, one hand still steady on the wall. He forcefully tugged on her hair to wrench himself from her mouth and it was as though she was hypnotized by him, flicking her tongue at his taut erection. The hand in her hair went to his member and began to stroke. Now it was her turn to beg.
“You want this inside you?” he panted.
“Yes,” she whimpered.
He repeated himself, his hand quickened its pace.
Amara became frantic.
“Say ‘I want you inside me,’ he said.
“I want you inside me,” she repeated.
“Again,” he said.
“I want you inside me!” she cried, pitifully.
“Get up. Turn around,” he said.
Gingerly she did, and when her back was straight, she turned around and pressed both hands to the wall. She only heard the tearing of condom packaging.
When she moved her hands to the hem of her dress he rebuked her. A moment later he was sheathed and he slowly inched her skirt back up to her waist. She was wearing a matching cornflower blue g-string. He would never be able to eat pie again without getting an erection, he thought.
In one smooth motion he was in. As he started faintly thrusting with her against the wall, Amara instinctively began to bend forward. He grabbed her hips, groaning at the sight of her bending to accommodate as much of him as she could. She was bending so far forward they nearly took up the entire hallway. She was so turned on that his thrusts were sending shocks through her entire body, all the way into her fingertips.
