Just Three Words

by Melissa Brayden

  Samantha took off the serious numbers glasses and rubbed her temple. “I’m sorry. The ad mocks you?”

  “The woman in it does, yeah. She knows I’m struggling to get the opacity on the top layer perfect, and when I can’t, she just looks all peaceful to contrast how angry I feel. It’s her game. She’s mocking me and I’m breaking up with her.”

  “Hmm. I had no idea stills of models could be so judgmental. Can I see?”

  “The ad?” Hunter sighed, trudged over to her laptop, and joined Samantha at her desk. “Take a look. It’s my best work ever in life,” she said blandly, resting her chin in her hand in defeat.

  Samantha studied the layout briefly before taking in air. “No way.”

  “You’re that impressed?”

  Samantha pointed at the screen and stared at Hunter, eyes wide. “She’s everywhere. It’s Tanya.”

  “Tanya. And that would be?”

  “Love of Libby’s life. Ruiner of happiness. Crazy representative of water and all things from the Earth.” Sam sighed and sat back in her chair. “No wonder she was mocking you. You’re lucky she doesn’t reach through that screen and devastate everything that makes you happy, because that would be a typical Tanya move.” And then she threw her head into her hands and downshifted. “That was mean. Tanya’s never been anything but nice to me. Creepy spa nice and annoying as hell, but still nice. I’m a mean person.” She lifted her head. “I didn’t used to be, but I am now. I don’t know why you talk to me.” She dropped her head on the desk with a bang.

  Hunter took in the dramatic display with a quiet smile and placed a hand on Sam’s back. “Hey, accountant person. You’re not mean. You’re one of the nicest people I know. There is actually no better person than you. So knock it off.”

  “Really?” Sam squeaked from the doldrums of the desk. She lifted her head again and the bright green eyes sparkled at Hunter. “Because you didn’t think so on Friday night. And we haven’t really spoken more than a handful of words since.”

  Hunter shrugged a shoulder. “I know. I was in a bad place on Friday and acted like an asshole. The thing that I said, I didn’t mean, and you should know that if I could take back that whole interaction, I would.”

  “Me, too. That was a horrible fight, and I take a lot of responsibility.”

  Hunter appreciated that. “But I took it where it didn’t need to go. And I would like to apologize.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I was so out of line it was crazy. I don’t want to fight with you. I happen to like you. A lot.”

  Hunter reclined in her chair and grinned. “Oh yeah? What about me?”

  Samantha blew out a breath. But she was smiling, and that was everything, because Hunter had missed that smile. It had a way of turning around her entire day. “We’re really doing this?”

  “Oh, I think we have to.”

  But then Sam did something Hunter wasn’t expecting. She took her hand, prompting the smile to fall from Hunter’s face as the moment shifted into something new, uncharted.

  “You, Hunter Blair, are valuable to me. You are talented and beautiful, but more than that, you’re thoughtful. You look out for me. And when I’m around you, I feel challenged in the most unexpected of ways.”

  They hit her hard, those words. Coming from Samantha, they carried a lot of weight. She and Samantha were staring at each other now and Samantha’s gaze dropped to her mouth. And God, that move affected Hunter. She had never wanted to kiss someone so badly in her life, and the knowledge that Sam was struggling too only doubled her desire. The air was thick around them and the sound seemed to fade from the room. Whatever was bubbling between them seemed to gain momentum by the hour. And the fight only seemed to have tossed gasoline on the fire. There was now a hunger in Sam’s eyes that had Hunter captivated and aching to touch her. Intimately. She reached out and cradled Samantha’s cheek, her skin soft and warm to the touch. At the contact, Samantha took a quick breath and hesitated a beat before backing out of the touch altogether.

  “We should probably eat something,” she said quietly, but her eyes hadn’t once departed from Hunter’s lips. “I’ll pick us up something from, um, Lulu’s.” She blinked purposefully, grabbed some cash from her purse, and was gone, just like that.

  Alone in the office, Hunter knew they were in sync. Maybe more than they had ever been. The question was whether to do anything further about it. She stared in frustration at the ceiling, wondering what she’d done to deserve this level of temptation surrounding the one girl she couldn’t have. Damn the universe and all of its complexities. She opened the laptop and stared at the model. “What?” she asked the screen, and shook her head. Spa bitches.

  *

  Twenty-five minutes later, Samantha made her way up the sidewalk, carrying a bag with their usual lunch fare: a turkey club for her and pastrami on rye for Hunter, homemade chips and two pickles on the side.

  Luckily, her heart rate seemed to have returned to normal from the unexpected exchange at the office. She wasn’t sure how they’d gotten to snap-crackle-pop status so quickly, but they had. One minute they’d been talking about Tanya, and two seconds later, the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees and Samantha was having all sorts of…intense cravings.

  She stole a chip from the bag as she turned the corner into the lobby of their building. There was purpose to her stride, as the world that had felt so wildly backward since her fight with Hunter was on its way to righting itself. Sure, there were still problems—she was already contemplating strategies to best keep herself from imagining Hunter naked for the rest of the afternoon. But anything was better than the not talking, even—Good God, what was that? Something small and furry interrupted her train of thought and darted across the lobby, prompting Samantha to freeze and crush the bag of food against her chest in defense. Moving like an NFL ball carrier in overtime, she hightailed it back to the street to spare her life and assess the situation.

  Tiny rodent monster in the lobby.

  Tiny rodent monster in the lobby.

  It was the only sentence that would come. She didn’t do rodents. Ever. In fact, they were high on the list of greatest fears. And this one had a long tail, which made her cringe all over at just the idea.

  After several cleansing breaths, Sam gathered enough courage to peer into the small lobby through the glass for any sign of Sly, their doorman. Sly would know what to do about the tiny rodent monster. He knew what to do about everything. But damn it all, there was no sign of Sly anywhere. Probably on his lunch break, which didn’t seem fair. Doormen didn’t need lunch when there were battles to fight. She took another look through the glass to pinpoint the TRM’s location. Gasp. But in even more frightening news, it was missing.

  “It could be anywhere!” she shouted to the street, prompting a glance or two from passing pedestrians. “Okay. So what am I supposed to do here?” She studied the elevator. Probably ten steps away once she entered the building. But there was always the risk that the elevator wouldn’t arrive right off and she’d be stuck with the tiny rodent monster in a small space. What if it got near her? What then?

  But she didn’t have a lot of choice. There was lunch and work and life to attend to. And she couldn’t let a little rodent monster crisis get in the way of that.

  She rolled her shoulders.

  She could be a badass against a little mouse. Hell, she rode the subway! She sagged in defeat at a new realization. This was New York City. Who was she kidding? TRM was likely a rat, and that meant she would die if there were contact. Not of disease, but of abject horror, and that was all people would talk about.

  Samantha Ennis died via rat horror.

  She shook herself out of the ever-spiraling what-if scenario. Any more thought on the topic would be detrimental to the goal. So she cleared her mind, threw open the door, and scurried the ten paces to the elevator bay. Mashing the Up button eighteen thousand times in succession didn’t seem to produce the elevator nearly as fast as she’d hoped. This w
as bad. Come on. Come on. Come on. And right on cue, there was the theme music from Halloween playing in her head. Excellent. Through it all, her eyes flew from one corner of the lobby to the other for any sort of furry movement. When she saw none, she shifted her focus briefly to the number readout above the bay and watched as the elevator descended from eight, seven, six, five, but then out of the corner of her eye was the slightest bit of rodent monster movement and oh, Warren Buffet, it was against the wall and sniffing its way in her direction! Was it a mouse or a rat? She didn’t know, but it had tiny little claws that made very faint clicking noises on the tile. A sound that would surely haunt her dreams for life.

  She tried to move, but her body was in charge and clearly on some sort of lunch break, probably with Sly. With every ounce of strength she had, she managed to run. It’s possible she also screamed and tossed lunch in the air over her shoulder. She only knew that part in retrospect, ascertained from the safety of the sidewalk.

  Finally, in desperation and fear for her life, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and called Hunter upstairs.

  She answered on the second ring. “Did you get lost?”

  “Something horrible has happened.”

  Hunter’s voice switched quickly to concern. “Okay. What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Outside the building. There’s a giant rat. A rodent monster in the lobby. I’m not making this up. It won’t let me get to the elevator. It hates me. I hate it back.”

  A pause. “A rodent monster?”

  “I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing here.”

  “What do you mean it ‘won’t let you’?”

  Sam paused and leveled with Hunter. “I can’t walk past it, Hunter. I just can’t. Do you think you could—?”

  “On my way.”

  She’d meant it, too, as three short minutes later, the elevator doors opened and Hunter strode into the lobby, cool as a cucumber, wearing her baby blue camo pants and her black V-neck. Hunter excelled at filling out that neckline. She tossed a glance at the monster, which appeared very interested in their discarded lunch, smiled to herself, and made her way outside.

  “That’s your rodent monster?”

  Samantha balked. “Um, yeah. Did you see that thing?”

  “It’s a medium-sized mouse at best. And it’s probably just as terrified of you.”

  “It’s a rat. And it’s evil.”

  “It’s a mouse, and it probably wandered in when someone held the door open for too long. It happens. Not a big deal. Shall I walk you in?”

  “I don’t think I can do that,” Sam said.

  “So you plan to live out here?”

  Samantha considered this. “What if you got rid of it?”

  “I don’t mind the mouse, but I’d rather not handle it personally if at all possible. I do have standards. Sly will deal with it when he gets back.”

  “I guess I’ll just have to wait, then.”

  Hunter shook her head in what seemed to be mild annoyance, and without another word, lifted Samantha into her arms and carried her through the lobby. “You’re kind of being a baby about this. You get that, right?”

  But Samantha was lost in the fact that Hunter’s arms were around her and she was able to inhale what seemed to be the aroma of fresh cotton and peaches. Would it be wrong of her to bury her face in Hunter’s neck? Because really, that was all she wanted to do. Absently, she realized Hunter had said something. “Hmm?”

  They stepped onto the elevator and Hunter met her eyes. The smaller space seemed more intimate, and with their faces only an inch or two apart, Hunter lowered her voice. “I said you’re being a little bit of a baby. That mouse is probably hurt that you ran from him. He just wanted to get to know you better. His heart is broken. A mousy ache.”

  “A mousy ache,” Sam said back, not fully taking in the conversation. She shook her head, refocusing. “That’s a thing?”

  “It is now.” Hunter had the longest eyelashes. And the softest brown eyes. So big and expressive. It wasn’t fair how easy it was to lose yourself in eyes like those. It occurred to her then that there had been a terrifying mouse incident just minutes before. Seemed a distant memory now. Hunter was still holding her in the elevator, she realized, and though she’d miss the contact very much, she should probably cut her a break. After she took just a moment to savor the feeling, that is, because it really was everything.

  “You can put me down now,” Sam said. “Thank you for your help.”

  Hunter held her gaze as the car ascended slowly. Her facial expression was resolute. “Not yet,” she said quietly.

  Samantha’s eyes found the panel of buttons on the wall. And that was when she realized that they weren’t on their way to the office. Hunter had pushed the button for the eleventh floor. Their apartment. Her stomach flip-flopped at the probable implication; her mouth went dry at the thought. She licked her lips, a nervous gesture, and turned back to Hunter, intent on pointing out the less-than-wise detour, but Hunter’s mouth was on hers before she could react. And it turned out that was totally okay, because Hunter kissed like heaven on Earth. Samantha was shocked at the strength of that kiss, how fast her body responded, convincing her easily that the eleventh floor was maybe the best idea ever.

  Her body now pulsed with a kind of electricity she never knew it could possess. It drove her crazy, so to compensate she pushed her tongue into Hunter’s mouth, exploring, tasting, savoring. God, it felt so right to finally give in to what had her preoccupied for days. To just say to hell with it and follow her primal instincts. And God, was this instinct worth the wait.

  The elevator dinged and Hunter didn’t hesitate.

  She carried Samantha into the apartment and deposited her quickly on the counter. Her eyes were focused, determined. She was on a mission as she pulled the black V-neck over her head, revealing a purple satin bra beneath. Sam stared in awe at the picturesque visual, the generous tops of breasts peeking out from the fabric. Hunter stepped out of her pants and stood succulently before Sam in matching lingerie. Without pause, she found Sam’s mouth once again and kissed her with an abandon that was quite simply contagious. Samantha’s hands pushed against that bra, her thumbs circling her nipples through the thin material. It was the hottest thing Samantha had ever experienced, this unexpected twist in her day. They’d been hard at work at the office just an hour before, and now look at them. She didn’t do things like this. This so wasn’t part of the routine.

  Hunter’s hands were on the move, unbuttoning Sam’s shirt, her hands instantly inside it. Sam arched into the touch, pushing her breasts into Hunter’s eager hands and closing her eyes at the sensation. She didn’t have matching lingerie. Would that be a problem? Unimportant details, she thought as she pulled Hunter’s bottom lip into her mouth in a move that had Hunter responding with a quiet moan. She smiled into the kiss. It turned out she was actually good at this.

  Sam’s shirt was off.

  Her bra, too.

  And she was on the kitchen counter—the kitchen counter, people. C’mon.

  Hunter pulled back and stared at Sam, her chest rising and falling with labored breath. Watching Hunter try to maintain control when she was normally so confident was more than a turn-on. Because she had done that. She had affected Hunter that way. It was an empowering feeling, and Sam loved it. Placing her hands on either side of Hunter’s face, she brought her back down for a searing kiss that, simply put, rocked her socks off.

  “I want you,” Hunter whispered against her mouth. “Now.”

  But for Sam, wanting was off the table. This was more. This was need. She nodded, meeting Hunter’s darkened eyes. And that seemed to be all Hunter required as she lifted Sam from where she sat on the counter and carried her back to Hunter’s bedroom.

  Hunter was on top and Sam reveled against the feel of Hunter’s weight lightly pressing her into the mattress, her warm skin flush against Sam’s. They kissed in a hot tangle of lips and tongues until Samantha thought she
might explode. But there was something she had to have first.

  She reversed their positions and smiled at Hunter’s surprised expression. But Samantha was on a mission and could not be deterred. It was unlike her to take such control in the bedroom, but she was finding it liberating. Like a drug. Removing the last of Hunter’s clothing was fun, but discovering what lay underneath the fabric was the real reward. She studied the now naked body beneath her, curious about all the ways to make Hunter feel, something she desperately needed to do. She skimmed a hand from Hunter’s neck down her breast to her stomach, encouraged as Hunter sucked in a breath. She took her time, kissing, touching, and experimenting. She made careful note of what Hunter responded to. Her neck was sensitive. Her breasts even more so. She wondered about the insides of her thighs and moved lower.

  Hunter was feeling a lot of things. Number one was that she couldn’t take much more of this languid exploration Sam seemed intent on. She was vibrating with desire and squirming beneath Sam’s touch in an attempt at any kind of release. Samantha placed a slow kiss on the inside of her thigh that had her closing her eyes in surrender. “Sam,” she managed to whisper. In fact, it was all she could manage. In answer, Samantha raised her head and moved upward for a kiss. It was slow, deep, and thorough. She brought her knee between Hunter’s legs and applied direct pressure, wringing a gasp from Hunter as the kiss became rough and demanding.

  “I’ve got you,” Samantha said as she moved steadily down her body. She parted Hunter’s thighs gently, her breath a soft caress. With the flat of her tongue, Sam licked the most tender part of Hunter, who was instantly hit with a jolt of something powerful. She squeezed the sheets in her hand, knotting them furiously. “God, Sam. Please.”