by Elle Thorpe
“Not true. The second one is always better,” Low said, tilting the tequila bottle in her direction.
She waved her hand at him, shaking her head. “Nope, no way. One is more than enough. I’ve got to drive.” Her gaze darted between Low and me before she turned to Riley and Jamison. “Come on, I’ll drive you guys home.”
Jamison and Riley looked bewildered as Bianca hustled them out the doors. “See you two tomorrow!” Bianca called, her sing-song voice echoing through the empty room. And just like that, the three of them disappeared, leaving Low and me in an empty racetrack bar.
He watched me, his eyes unashamed as they drifted over my body. “You gotta go too, Reese?”
Damn, his voice could bring a girl to her knees. I let my eyes drop to his crotch as I contemplated that possibility for a minute. Shaking my head, I reached for the tequila bottle. I didn’t need Dutch courage for what I knew would happen between us tonight. But it sure wouldn’t hurt.
Low took the bottle from me, placing it back on its spot on the shelf. He leant in close and lowered his mouth to my ear. The five o’clock shadow along his jaw scratched pleasantly at my cheek. “I want you sober for tonight. I don’t want you forgetting anything I plan to do to you.”
His words made me want to throw the whole damn tequila bottle in the bin. Sober or drunk, I didn’t care. I wanted him. If he wanted me sober, then so be it. I tilted my head to the side a little, an unspoken invitation for him to kiss me.
To my surprise, he pulled back. His eyes lost the fuzziness of lust I’d seen in them a second earlier. He was crystal clear and straight to the point when he spoke. “You know I go home with a lot of women, right? Men too, on occasion.”
He braced both hands on the bar top behind him and leant farther back, giving me even more space. “We’re both adults. We both know what this is. I have every intention of sleeping with you, even though I promised the others and myself I wouldn’t. But you need to know how it is. I’m not boyfriend material. I’m not interested in a relationship, and I don’t do repeats.”
He waited as I let his words sink in. He thought I’d run. Expected it even, judging by the wary look on his face.
“I won’t want you for more than one night, Low, no matter what you do to me tonight.”
That damn eyebrow quirked again. “Not as innocent as you look, are you, sweet girl?”
“I’m not particularly sweet either.”
Business side of the deal seemingly over, he nodded. “Fair enough.” His crystal blue eyes stared into mine for a long moment. I didn’t look away, letting him see the determination in my own eyes. I wondered how long it would take him to realise I was up for this. He didn’t need to pussyfoot around me.
I got sick of the stare-off first.
I grabbed my stack of Post-it notes from beside the till where they’d been sitting all week and threw them in my handbag. “Your place or mine?” I walked out the bar door and held it open on the other side, waiting for him to follow.
Low chuckled, and I thought I heard him mutter the word ‘impatient’ under his breath. He took the heavy wood door from me and pushed it back into place, locking it in. I sauntered off towards the main entrance, but then I felt more than heard his presence behind me. His arm shot out and grabbed my hand, pulling me to a stop. I spun around and found myself chest to chest with him. I had to tilt my head back to look up at his face.
“Not that way,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
My stomach flip flopped as electricity sparked where his skin met mine.
His hand was warm, and I was surprised to find callouses across his palm. He didn’t have the skin of someone who worked inside all day, pouring drinks. I wondered what he did outside of work hours to rough his hands up like that.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we pushed through a door marked staff only. The door slammed shut behind me. I’d barely noted the rush of fresh air surrounding us before he spun around and dropped his lips to mine. I stopped breathing. My eyes closed as my lips parted. Blood rushed through my body as sensation exploded within me. My brain began switching off as his touch and his scent chased away my thoughts. Relief flooded me. All I needed to think about right now, all I wanted to think about, was him.
He walked us back against the door we’d just come out of and pressed me into it, his lips not once leaving mine. My breath caught up with me as he broke away from my mouth, trailing his lips along the corners, along my jaw, and down to my neck. The scruff on his jaw scratched at my face, adding another sensation to concentrate on.
His thigh moved between my legs and pressed against my already aching core. I bit back a moan. Yes. This was what I wanted. I didn’t even care we were in some service alley along the side of the racetrack, and that I could hear cars driving by on the road that couldn’t have been more than a hundred metres away. Pulling him closer, I pressed myself into him, as he trailed kisses down my neck.
“I want to take you back to my place, Reese, where I can lay you out and do this right,” he mumbled into my neck, his body fitted to mine like a glove. “But I can’t wait. I’ve wanted to do this all week. I want to fuck you right here in this alleyway.”
Sparks ignited in my centre at his crude words. He could have recited his grocery list in that voice and I would have been a puddle at his feet. This was too much.
“Do it.”
He groaned as he pressed his hips towards my own. He was already hard beneath his pants. I couldn’t help grinning. This is what I loved about sex. The ability to feel powerful and in control. To lose yourself in another human being for a while, to think of nothing but hands, and tongues, and pleasure.
“You’re impatient, aren’t you?”
I shook my head, no longer interested in talking. I just wanted to feel.
His hands cupped my breasts through my shirt, and I ran my hands through his hair, messing it up the same way I’d thought of doing the first day we’d met. His mouth was all over my neck and cleavage as his hands tugged and twisted at my aching nipples. I pressed my pelvis towards him, trying to hook one of my legs around his waist.
“Fuck,” I bit out, when my fitted skirt prevented me from doing it.
He ran his hands down my thighs and yanked my skirt up until it gathered around my waist. I glanced at the top of the alley, at the cars driving past, their headlights illuminating the darkness.
My knees buckled a little as I got my leg where I wanted it and felt the thickness of his cock pressed against my centre. My core ached for release as blood thrummed through my body. I brought my hands to his belt and pulled. I grinned. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, the tip of his cock already poking up above his waistband.
My eyes met his, and he shrugged. “I’ve been hard off and on all day, just thinking about this. Didn’t want to alarm the customers, so I tucked it away.”
“So thoughtful of you.” I laughed but cut myself off as his warm fingers grazed my inner thigh. Anticipation swept through me and I started up my fumbling with his button again.
He pulled aside the scrap of lace covering me and ran one finger through my wetness. My mission to undress him came to an abrupt halt as the sensation roared through me. Oh God, I needed more. I needed him in me.
With a new sense of urgency, I renewed my efforts to get his pants undone. I frowned when I noticed they were buzzing and vibrating.
With a sigh, Low removed his hand from my folds and reached back into his pocket, pulling out his phone.
I stumbled back a step, confusion and irritation replacing all the good feelings I’d been experiencing a minute earlier. “Are you seriously going to read your messages right now?” What the actual fuck?
“Hold on a second, baby,” he murmured, his eyes still full of lust. “It’s been buzzing this whole time we’ve been out here. I’m just going to make sure it’s not an emergency, then turn it off.”
I huffed out an impatient sigh, ignoring the fact he’d called me baby, and dropped my hands
from his pants. I hated when a one-night stand talked like that. Terms of endearment were for couples who loved each other, not a couple of horny strangers fucking in a back alley. I tried to keep my annoyance from showing too much. But I was standing in the dark, with everything hanging out and on display for anyone to see. And he was checking his phone. What an asshole.
I grabbed the hand he wasn’t holding the phone with and pressed it to one of my breasts. He gave me a huge, shit-eating grin and pressed the home button on his phone. His thumb flicked absently over my nipple as he read his text message. I closed my eyes, leaning into the wall behind me again. He had thirty seconds to read that message and there had better be a mind-blowing orgasm at the end of it. I opened an eye when he stopped his fondling. He’d taken a large step back, his pants still half undone, his belt hanging open. He stared at his phone like he no longer knew what it was.
I let out another sigh, and his head snapped up. His face, lit up by the phone screen, looked blank. Not horny like it had a moment earlier. I stood up a little straighter, worry creeping in.
“I…I’ve got to go,” he said, stumbling back a few more steps. He gripped the back of his neck, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown.
“What?” I felt exposed. And frustrated. Every part of me still tingled. My skin was already mourning the loss of his touch, every nerve ending anticipating its return. Disappointment mixed with embarrassment threatened to take over. I needed this tonight. Had he gotten a better offer?
He shook his head, backing away as he tucked in his cock and did up his work pants. Leaving me standing there alone, tugging my skirt down.
“Are you serious right now?” I squeaked out.
He shook his head again, that mussed up hair I’d been running my fingers through moments earlier falling in his eye. He headed toward the top of the alleyway before breaking into a run.
My mouth dropped open. He was leaving. He was actually leaving me here alone in the alleyway. And not just walking away. He was running away from me. My face blazed with embarrassment.
“What the fuck, Low?” I yelled at his retreating form. I watched him until he rounded the corner out of the alleyway, but he never turned back. Not once.
4
Low
My fist slammed into the polished wood door.
“Mason!” I bellowed before I started up with the banging again. Pain vibrated down my arm, but I ignored it. “Mason!”
Every muscle in my body was wound too tight. My thighs burned from running here all the way from work. The muscles in my arms contracted and released as I alternated between flexing my fingers then curling them tight into fists. My chest heaved. I couldn’t breathe. I tried sucking in another breath. Shit. I really couldn’t breathe. The muscles in my chest locked as if trapped in an iron vice. I was twenty-five years old and ran five kilometres a day. I wasn’t a prime candidate for a heart attack, but it sure as hell felt like I was having one.
“Mason!”
The door flew open, and I pulled my arm back, just in time to avoid punching Mason in the face. His eyes travelled over my heaving, sweating body.
“I guess you got my message then.” It was a statement. Not a question.
“What do you fucking think?” I fished my phone out of my pocket and held it up, millimetres from Mason’s face. “Who sends messages like that?”
Mason said nothing.
I took a deep breath, not wanting to ask, but needing to know. “Is it true?”
Mason looked down at the floor. “I didn’t want to tell you in a message, you know. I tried to talk to you today—”
“While I was at work!”
“I know! I know, I’m sorry! That was a mistake. But I had to talk to you.”
I couldn’t keep still, impatience coursing through me. I bounced on the balls of my feet. “Answer my damn question. Is. It. True?” I spat the words at him, venom lacing every syllable.
Mason sighed and opened the door wider. “Look, you’d better come inside.”
“No! Just answer me. Goddammit, Mason. Is it true or not?” I was shouting now, but I was beyond caring who heard.
Mason looked away. Fucking coward couldn’t even look me in the eye when he told me. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “I’m sorry, Low.”
I stopped breathing. I’m sorry, Low. Three tiny words. Three tiny words that would fuck me up for the rest of my life. Rage coursed through me, igniting my blood and re-energising my tired muscles. I drew back my arm and slammed my fist into the doorjamb, missing Mason’s face by centimetres. He flinched away from me, his eyes growing wide.
“Bit bloody late for sorry, isn’t it?”
5
Reese
“Shut the hell up,” I mumbled into my pillow as my alarm went off. I pulled one arm out of my blankets and fumbled around the nightstand, jabbing at my phone until it went silent. Then I buried my face again. The light streaming in my bedroom window was trying to cause me permanent blindness.
I groaned as I took stock of how seedy I felt. How much had I drunk last night? There was the tequila I’d done at the racecourse—that wasn’t enough to cause a hangover of this magnitude. My stomach rolled, and I held my breath for a few seconds while I contemplated throwing up. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but the queasiness passed. I threw off the quilt, feeling flushed and needing fresh air. The sudden movement caused my stomach to roll again. Shit. That had been a bad idea. I changed my mind—I was going to be sick after all. I shot out of bed and sprinted for my little bathroom, dodging the moving boxes that threatened to bury me alive if I knocked one too hard.
After emptying the contents of my stomach, I slumped against the cool tiled wall. Once the world stopped spinning, I used the sink as leverage to pull myself up and splashed cold water on my face. Looking in the mirror was a mistake. There was mascara-smeared down my cheeks and my eyes were bloodshot. My long dark hair looked as if birds had taken up residence during the night. “Classy, Reese, classy.”
I opened the bathroom cabinet, just so I didn’t have to look at myself in the mirror anymore. Rummaging through it, I came up triumphant with a bottle of ibuprofen. My disappointment when it was empty made the pounding in my head worse. Miserable, I shut the door, wincing at my reflection again before staggering out of the bathroom. Everything was still spinning. Last night must have been a doozy.
I traced my way back through the maze of packing boxes, this time noticing the empty wine bottle on my coffee table. And another one, half empty, sitting beside it like twin towers of judgement. That, plus the tequila? No wonder I wasn’t feeling so hot.
I crawled onto my bed in slow motion, excruciatingly careful not to move my head or jostle my stomach any more than necessary. God, it felt good to lie down. But shit. More than one full bottle of wine plus shots? That was excessive, even judging by my recent standards. I was lucky I hadn’t vomited and choked on it when I’d passed out.
I rolled over and hugged a mascara smeared pillow to my chest. At least there were no random men here I’d have to make awkward small talk with until they got the hint and left.
The memory of Low leaving me hanging in the alley suddenly made me felt like vomiting again. Regret flooded me. I was an idiot. I should have known better than to take on someone I worked with. Nothing good could have come from that, even if he hadn’t left me with a raging lady-boner. I’d come home and taken care of my frustrations by myself, but it didn’t have the desired effect. I was too pissed off to lose myself in an orgasm, the way I wanted to. So instead, I’d turned to alcohol. A bottle of sauv blanc would never leave me high and dry in an alley, with my goods on display. And by my sixth or seventh glass, I’d found the oblivion I’d been looking for.
After a year of casual sex, I thought I was a good judge of character when it came to picking who’d be up for it. When I set my sights on Low, I never expected he’d leave the way he had. He’d been into it. He’d been the classic one-night-stand sort of guy, just the way I liked
them. No strings attached. He’d flirted with me as much as I flirted with him. The way he’d pushed me up against that door, too impatient to even make it back to somewhere private… no, he’d wanted it as much as I had.
Until he hadn’t.
I tried giving myself a pep talk. This was his problem. Not mine. But the rejection stung all the same. It was hard not to imagine he’d suddenly found something about me so repulsive he couldn’t continue. No, no, no. I would not go down the rabbit hole of self-doubt. Low had left last night because of something in that text message. But had that text been staged? The old, ‘call me in an hour with an emergency to get me out of here?’ Or had he gotten a better offer? Maybe he had a secret girlfriend or boyfriend Bianca didn’t know about?
“Uggggggggggghhhhhhhhh,” I groaned. Why was I doing this to myself? Grabbing my Post-it notes from my bedside table, I wrote in capital letters, DON’T WASTE TIME STRESSING OVER DOUCHEBAG BARTENDERS. I underlined the word douchebag a few times just to make myself feel better, then peeled it off and added it to the other Post-its stuck on the headboard of my bed. They weren’t all mean notes about men. I wrote down motivational quotes that appealed to me as I came across them, or song lyrics I was into. A few were covered in doodles I’d done one day while I was on hold to the electricity company. I don’t know why I’d kept those.
Glancing at my phone again, I realised how late it was getting. I had another shift at eleven, so I needed to get a move on. A shower made me feel marginally better, and the room had stopped spinning by the time I’d thrown on a clean uniform and applied makeup, concentrating on the bags under my eyes. Shame there wasn’t much I could do for the redness of them.
I made my way out to my tiny kitchen bench, surveying the mess while I waited for the world’s slowest kettle to boil. There were boxes everywhere. I’d moved to this tiny apartment months ago, and I’d unpacked nothing more than the bare essentials. And by essentials, that meant a corkscrew, the kettle, and my vibrator. I nudged a box by my foot, and it twisted around to reveal a hot pink Post-it labelled ‘Veterinary text books.’ Sighing, I nudged it back around, so I couldn’t see it. I didn’t even know why I still had that box. This place wasn’t big enough to be storing things I no longer had use for.
