The Rental

by Rebecca Berto

  He gripped onto my upper arms. “Why did you let me, Vee baby? Why? I only want you to touch me.”

  I disentangled myself further from him. “You bent to lick her boobs.”

  “You looked down so you could watch her finger you.”

  It was funny what happened next. The moment Rick first kissed me I could see the instant something snapped in him. And like then, the tension snapped.

  We collided, mouths ravaging each other. Wet, sloppy, and animalistic. He bit my lip, pulling it back, staring into my eyes as he claimed it. When he let it go, I looped my lips fully around his tongue and fucked it hard, pulling soft groans from that same mouth I now claimed.

  “Mmm,” he rasped, pulling away from me and raking his eyes down my body. He tugged in his lip, lolling ever so slightly from a wave of crushing passion.

  I had no idea how we’d handle our desires.

  It seemed nothing would be enough for the depths of our need for each other.

  But if he was game, I was.

  We showered, soaping up each other with precision, the loofah gliding over every nook and cranny of our bodies. I got to know him with my hands, yet also my heart. He moaned, his knees weakened, and his eyes fluttered closed when I touched him or told him the ways in which I wanted him.

  It was lucky we wrapped the towels around ourselves in the bathroom and not out in the room, because waiting on the bed with one leg crossed over the other and hands clasped in her lap was a stern-eyed Amber.

  14

  RICK AND I couldn’t have walked further apart as we followed Amber to her office. Shame followed like a bad odour. Except I had cleaned up and didn’t know otherwise how to rid the sensation with a mass of thoughts still swirling inside my head.

  Amber clutched the doorknob to her office as we reached our destination, paused and swivelled back to us. “You don’t mind changing afterward, do you?” her eyes surveyed Rick and me like we were her prey. In many ways, we were, and she was about to eat up our livelihood.

  Rick shook his head. “No, really, it’s fine.”

  What were we going to do? Cry poor about feeling indecent and exposed after all that?

  Amber took her desk chair. I took the spare one. With an even, cold voice, she said, “Rhett, go and grab a spare. You need to sit down for this.”

  He returned, clutching the back support of a chair and sat it down a solid metre from where I was. We formed a triangle, just like we had when we’d all first met in the dressing room as I stumbled upon Rick’s secret place of work. My head spun. I rubbed my temples.

  Eyeing me, Amber said, “Right, well this is one fuckload of a mess. I’ve been informed there is a personal relationship occurring between you two outside of work hours. Such as the moment just passed when I stumbled across this very breach of rules. I have one rule in that regard, and you disregarded it. And it’s not like we’re saints here. We allow flirting and close work when warranted by client request.”

  “I apologise,” Rick said. He didn’t sound very sorry, though.

  Amber raised her eyebrows at him with such ease that I could tell she could hardly be bothered to give us any more attitude. “Really now?”

  “Yes.” His voice didn’t waver, and he merely hung back on his chair, elbows propped on each corner of the back. “I’m terribly sorry this happened between Victoria and me under your roof.”

  She ran her tongue over her teeth. I had less confidence than he did and wanted to swat his arm for his obnoxiousness when we were meant to be meek and truly remorseful. Not stuck up and dominant, even while offering an apology that rather sounded like he was calling the shots.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I sounded so small I barely heard my own voice.

  She sighed, sitting back like Rick was. The mood turned lighter with her simple gesture. “Look, I don’t enjoy acting like Queen Bitch about this. The Rental is about all sorts of pleasure. However, I told you what had happened, Victoria, just before you arrived, and I won’t risk this barely there issue to be blown up into a huge atom of destruction. Not all clients—in fact not many—will tolerate what Jimmy has encouraged.” She mashed her lips together and just visibly shook her head. “You knew I had to ask you to leave if it happened and it has. Victoria, Rhett, collect your belongings and leave the premises of The Rental.”

  She dismissed us as simple as that, and Rick stood, holding his chair out to return it. He was about to leave just like that!

  “Amber,” I whispered, and then cleared my throat and spoke up. “Please, we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Please.”

  God, I needed this. I wasn’t ready to go back to my old life. I hadn’t thought of bills or money or sleeping on the street for a while now, and I could try to make that discouragement snuff out my flame for Rick. We’d just hold on until we had options.

  If I were being honest with myself, I’d miss our kinkier sides, our Rhett and Victoria personas, as much as the money, if not more.

  Amber chuckled. “Don’t go and waste something like you two have. Go and enjoy yourselves with decency and privacy. I’m not mad, Victoria. But I don’t have interest of you as a worker of mine. Unless …”

  I gazed at Rick, to her, and round and round between the rigid tension. Amber’s lips pressed together in a slight grimace. The confliction in her expression changed the air between us.

  “Unless?” I prompted.

  “Rhett, if you’d like to have a further one-on-one meeting, we can discuss the future of your bodyguard position.”

  He didn’t flinch, not a glad smile or widened eyes. Just a monotone voice. “I never leave a lover behind, ma’am.”

  And at that, she raised an eyebrow.

  But we still packed our shit.

  And left.

  • • •

  WE CLIMBED INTO our own cars, regular clothes back on. I wrapped my coat around my waist as I waited for the car’s heater to warm. In the meantime, I sat in my driver seat, cold air slapping my face within the already cool confines of my car. My limbs were too stiff for comfort, and I didn’t want to drive, sad, mad, and stiff.

  Next to me, Rick sat in his car. From the way his fingers clutched the steering wheel, I couldn’t tell what was in his head, but it surely differed from mine. My heart ached to be with him—leap out of this stupid cold seat and plant myself over his lap, hugging his midsection tight.

  A minute or so later as I fiddled with the knob to find a radio station, my mobile phone went off. It was a new text.

  Rick: Meet at the skate park?

  I looked up to him, but he was staring at the dash, not me, not even his phone. We could have gone somewhere more private, but I understood why he didn’t ask for that. The Rental was the start of a whole new set of complications for us, and the skate park was the last place when things weren’t so bad.

  Vee: Sure. Are you OK though? I’m sorry, babe. I’ve ruined things.

  I wouldn’t and couldn’t let him take the blame if that was what was on his mind. I’d seduced him, I’d forced myself onto him, and he gave in to my temptation. If not for my instigation, we wouldn’t be where we were now.

  Rick: Drive slow, LV. We’ll get there eventually.

  The trip took forever, out of the dense cityscape of high-rise buildings and blinding lights and across town, out to the eerily quiet roads of the suburbs. I never found a suitable radio station and instead, kept the volume to a hum as I held my steering wheel tight and looked out to the homes we passed. Rick put his foot down, so when I pulled up into the parking spots he was there already, car idling. He’d reversed in and his sharp gaze connected with me while I rolled closer.

  As I slowed my car next to his and parked, he revved the car and it mounted the kerb, rolling onto the grassy area. I was about to do the same for whatever reason he had, but his window opened and he waved me over.

  He stepped out and into the back seat with me. We snuggled closely into the hot air inside, facing the park.

  The skate rink
dipped into the dark shadow at night, but the top of it stretched into a wide circle. Years ago, a few of us were there, high and mindless, wasting the night away.

  In Rick’s parked car, we were positioned—in fact—in the spot we’d seen each other so long ago when I was sixteen and he nineteen. I shivered from the similarities. This was his perspective.

  Oh, how I wished I had enough sense, and sobriety, to hear what he’d said. I didn’t know how Rick could act so blasé about what had occurred at The Rental. We were at severe risk of falling into debt, jobless; there was a chill in our relationship since earlier tonight, and I feared that the most.

  “Are you cold?” Rick asked when I shivered again. “I can turn the heater up.”

  “No,” I said, pressing down his shoulder with a flat hand. “It’s nice here.” With my hand touching his shirt, I helped myself to more of his chest gliding down around the firm shape of his pec and zigzagging further over the shape of his abs. Rick was too perfect for me in countless ways.

  He took on the sentence of his brother’s near-fatal errors in the blink of an eye.

  He put my needs first, loving me selflessly.

  He accordingly dominated or submitted his body and mind for my sexual pleasure.

  I could go on. But I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing for him besides a sweet and saucy romance to quench his needs.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, hand to the centre of his chest.

  “We go on,” he said and slid his hand under my jaw and up behind my ear. With confident force, he pulled me to him, and I gave my lips, expelling harshly with relief. I climbed over his thighs without breaking the perfect connection, but my feet bumped into his thigh and my skull crashed into the top of his car, and while I moved to fix the position up, I smashed my breasts into his face.

  We laughed loud from deep in our bellies, and Rick smiled against me, holding my neck fully in his hands. Oh, the way he made the butterflies flutter.

  “Rick …” I whispered, and kissed the corner of his forehead, the side of his nose, his cheek, and his lips.

  After minutes of kissing, we parted, breathless. My hips were against his.

  His gazed roamed my face, and his expression turned dark. “You asked not so long ago why I was afraid about you being at The Rental, and what for. I said it was for us. Vee,” he paused, sliding his pointer finger down my lips, pulling my bottom lip with it. “It was for us because I knew what I wanted with you. You were innocent in my mind, and I didn’t want to taint you with dark love, knowing you almost certainly didn’t want the same. And I’d be revealed—bare—if you entered my world. I was afraid for us because I want too much. I want to grow hard with things I thought for certain would hurt you. I want to fuck you so hard you shake beneath my body, and I want to love you so deeply, I can feel your heart as if it were within me. I can’t seem to stop. I want eyes to witness me claiming you. And that’s why I was afraid for you to see who I really was. I’m not such a nice guy for a girl like you.”

  “Do you know what I’m afraid of?” I asked, holding his jaw and rubbing my thumbs along his lip. He waited, and I responded. “That I’ll lose everything and never get to love our screwed up little existence so fully again.”

  He growled and flipped us around, pinning me to the seat. My chest hammered up and down as he spread my legs and then used his hands to hold mine. He planted them on the ends of the headrests along the top of the seat.

  As his looming chest inched closer, I held a trapped breath in wonder of what was to come. Was this the ‘Rick’ he wanted to show me?

  “Don’t move,” he growled, pushing my cheek to the side with his nose. His breaths against my skin were elevated, heated.

  The waistband of my skirt sat high on my tummy, but right then against Rick, he flipped the hem up well above my waist. He lifted my hips and yanked my thick stockings to my thighs. He slipped off my shoes and his hands came to the soles of my feet, raising them to the upper, far corners of the back seat windows. I pressed hard for grip, which thrust the tops of my thighs hard into my breasts.

  “I want to take care of you like my woman, but fuck you like you’re my possession.”

  The honesty in his words felt contrary, like his soft hands around my neck. I swallowed hard.

  Rick’s hard glaze reviewed my obedience as he unzipped his pants and flipped out his erection. His steeled expression toughened further as he yanked up my panties. I was wet from before; wet from his dominant, true self. He directed himself into me, the hilt of his cock sinking to my opening, his sacs against my apex.

  I tilted my chin to kiss him, but he backed away, burying himself into me with rolling hips, confident and building—building to frenzied impalement. I tried again, tilting and parting my lips, panting hard.

  “No, don’t kiss me now. I want to watch you become mine. I want to watch myself fall into you. I want to watch the world around us while you give yourself over.”

  His words touched me like learnt fingers, stimulating a spark in my sex and a choked whimper in my throat. I curled my fingers around the cushion, and used my feet to plant my ass flush against the seat while he gave me everything:

  Anger,

  Passion,

  Love.

  Everything but his kiss as he bent high above against the roof, glaring down at me, watching my rolling eyes, my licking lips, and himself as he slammed into me. It was like that he came, adjusting one hand to my jaw to still me, the other taking part of his weight.

  “I love you,” I said afterward, still panting, and I continued, feeling renewed strength. “What happened earlier wasn’t what we hoped, but at least we have nothing to come between us now.”

  A wave passed over his face, thrusting deep into his chest. I wondered if it was my words. Had to be. But I couldn’t read his eyes because he blinked, then shut them. He mashed his lips together and sucked in a deep breath, waging a silent war with himself.

  He pulled out slowly, the sensation so tender it felt as good as the moment he had entered me. He tucked himself back in and stepped out of the car. I adjusted my panties and clothing and crawled over, but he didn’t seem to notice me waiting, lips puckered. Not only didn’t he kiss or say a word to me, but he also got into his driver seat. Like that.

  I came around, bending at the window, then pecked his cheek.

  “Love you, too,” Rick whispered. “So much.”

  It took a moment to remember he was saying it back to me.

  He was rigid as he was before, showing dominance when we made love. In sex, it connected our desires, but here, it distanced his words and his demeanour.

  “Rick …”

  He swept a glance up to me and rubbed his lips together, thinking. “Want me to follow you home?”

  I pulled back in shock. “No, no, I’ll be fine. What’s going on, though? Are you okay?”

  “Fine, babe,” he said, but his tone was clipped and dismissive. “Text me when you’re home.” He leaned out and pecked my cheek, then ignited the car and gave me a parting look. I stepped back and saw his hand shift the stick. He was going to drive off. Right now.

  “Rick, wait!” I called. “Where are you …” but I drifted off, seeing that he accelerated, driving off with no explanation.

  The rejection pained like the days and weeks and months had the last time he took off on me, but all at once, a direct blow to my chest. I clutched a fist to the centre, dropping on my heels and sunk my face into my hands.

  What had made such a sudden change in him?

  15

  “UM, DARLING, THAT bacon isn’t going to die any more than it already is dead. Here.”

  Mum leant over my plate and manoeuvred the bacon with more technique so it stacked.

  We hadn’t spoken for much of this week. It had been weird with Rick and weird with her. What was I going to say? That I’d been experimenting with my boyfriend and some other woman, as well as a stranger, but now that woman, Nix, ratted us out, ending the
games?

  What a traitorous cow. Befriending me, seducing me, having me, and then burning me. Did she know or not care she was bringing down Rick with her? They’d worked together for months before I came along, so they had to be somewhat friends.

  I opened my mouth, took the bacon, and swallowed loudly. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “How’s work?” she asked, peering at me while eating some eggs.

  “I’m only doing shifts at the leisure centre. There were … issues that changed my schedule.”

  The lies were strangling, and in turn, it flustered me. I turned my head, chin over my shoulder to the window out the front.

  It was another bleak day of relentless winter, and I had been cold to my bones all week, including the times with Rick. Later the same night in the skate park, I called him but didn’t speak to him until he returned my call late the night after. He brushed off his mood and abrupt departure, saying he needed time to sleep and was stressed about bills. Sure, I wasn’t thinking about bills, but I had Mum as back up. Rick supported himself. Since then, we were pleasant but distant even though we’d hung out.

  We kissed and hugged, but it lived briefly, dying out. He was hesitant to hold me, and I was hesitant to hold him back.

  Was it as simple as the stress because of no work?

  Or was the honesty Rick mentioned in his car too much? Was he right? No, I thought, and clutched to the image of him ordering me, of me submitting to those orders. I shattered apart into an orgasm as I had other times with him, the moment powerful and bonding.

  “Are you still working at the leisure centre?”

  “Just a few shifts.”

  “I’m sorry about work not being ideal, but I don’t want you feeling guilty. I know you feel like you have to work out of duty and care, but I’m the mother. I will take care of us. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, using my fork to shuffle my food around. I wasn’t hungry. Not for food anyway. I couldn’t get my high from fucking Rick and instead, I craved the cloud of smoke when I lit up, and I found my tongue licking my lips, missing the feeling of something there. And my mind—it wandered into a dark, empty place where my world dulled into greyscale.