by Abby Angel
I love the feeling of her wetness on my fingers, and I make sure to share it with her. I remove my fingers abruptly from her pussy and place them over her lips. Eagerly, she opens her mouth and sucks on my fingers, the flavor of her own pussy making her skin prickle in a fraction of a second.
"Oh, God … just give me that cock!" she begs me, her voice cracking as it reaches a desperate high pitch.
In a quick motion of my hips I’m inside of her once again, my body pressing down on hers, sweat running down my back. She laces her legs around my back and imprisons me in a tight embrace, making my cock plunge deep inside of her in a way that makes her scream at the top of her lungs.
She’s screaming so loudly that I bet every single one of my neighbors can hear her right now. And you know what? I don’t even care if someone is listening. All I care for in this moment is to give her what she wants.
"Make me come …" she moans. "Make me come… Fuck me hard, I…"
She doesn’t need to ask me twice.
I pull out of her and motion her to place herself on all fours. She rolls on the couch and raises her ass at me, wiggling it from side to side; with one hand I feel her wet pussy aching for me and, happy to oblige to her desires, ram my cock in her hard enough for her to press her face against the leather couch, her muffled scream of pleasure bouncing off the couch.
I push every inch into her, grabbing her hair with both hands.
"It’s… so… fucking… good…" is all she manages to say between each stride I make inside of her. "Harder... harder... HARDER!"
I don’t know if she's screaming or whispering. I’m lost in motion, sweat tricking down both our bodies, her wet hair clinging to her face.
I go as fast and as hard as I can until her screaming makes her throat go sore. Even so, she lets out a harsh moan that makes my skin prickle, her body convulsing as an out-of-control climax takes hold of her body.
The sound of her moaning drives sparks of electricity down my body, and I feel a pleasant tightness taking hold of my body. My cock jerks deep inside her and, grabbing her by the hips with more force than is necessary, I join her in absolute paradise.
I close my eyes as my cock explodes inside of her, my cum filling her pussy and dripping down onto the couch. I breathe out, long and hard, as if I’m breathing out all the tension that has accumulated in my body.
Only when her body goes limp do I let go of her.
I roll to the side, allowing my body to rest right next to hers in the cramped space of the couch. She’s breathing hard, as if she’s just ran a marathon, not that I’m in a much better condition. My lungs are working hard, my heart working overtime, all of my muscles feeling sore from the effort.
I’ve never felt more satisfied in my life. It’s like everything I’ve always chased has led me up to this moment. This is almost paradise. Almost. There’s only one way it could be better. And, even though I really don’t want to think or talk about it, I can tell that she’s thinking the same right now. It’s a heavy silence right now, and I don’t want to be the one breaking it. I don’t have to. She turns to me, and looks in my eyes, running her hand down my chest. "It’s not the same without him," she tells me, her eyes wide as she bares her soul to me, trusting me. "It’s not the same." "No, it’s not," I whisper back at her, pulling her close to me and wrapping her in my arms. Without Ares, we’re incomplete.
Ares
Betrayal.
I never thought it’d happen, but it is what it is. Nothing less, nothing more. This is what I get for opening myself up and allowing something as fucking stupid as trust and love to take over my life. Yeah, you read that right—love. I thought that I felt it, you know? I thought that I finally felt something like it again, and this time there were no boundaries to it.
And then it all came crashing down.
I’m not going to lie; this fucking hurts. It’s like a knife wedged in the space between my soul and mind, a sharp piece of pain that I simply can’t dislodge. But whatever, I’ve been here before, and I’ll be fucked if I’ll allow this to defeat me. Pain hasn’t brought me down before, and it won’t do it now. Not a fucking chance in hell. Daphne and Lucas might think they have me beat, but they’re just fucking wrong.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at me right now, sitting in my office with the blinds drawn and an open bottle of scotch sitting on my desk, and you’re thinking that I look like a shadow of the man I was when all this started. If that’s what you’re thinking, I’m sorry to fucking disappoint you, but that’s not it. I just need a day or two to process all of this. Yeah, what a surprise, I’m a fucking human being, just like you.
I grab the bottle of scotch and am about to pour some more into the glass when there’s a knock at the door. I raise my eyes for a moment, but then just shrug. Whoever it is, they can fuck off.
"Mr. Strong?" I hear my secretary call me, but I remain in silence. I just want a fucking minute of silence, is that too much to ask? I’ve been betrayed by the two people I love the most, and I’ve already sold my soul to the fucking government; is a moment too much to ask?
She knocks again, and this time I don’t even bother to look up. Except, instead of simply giving up, I hear the handle turn and then the door swings open abruptly.
"I told you I didn’t want to be distur --" The word dies in my throat as I see the two figures standing by the doorway, the shadow of their bodies falling across my office and reaching for me.
"What the hell are you doing, Ares?" Lucas starts, taking one step inside and looking at me with one cocked eyebrow. Daphne follows after him and, in a gesture that makes my heart tighten up in pain, she grabs his arm and leans against him. Seymour was right; these two were plotting together.
"What does it look like?" I growl, grabbing the bottle once more and filling up my glass. I feel my hand trembling as I pour down the whisky, and I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. Now, instead of love, I feel something entirely different: hate.
"Ares … I don’t understand. Why would you side with Seymour now?" Daphne asks me, taking one hesitant step forward. I raise my eyes to meet hers and what I see there tears my soul shreds. Throwing my head back, I down the whisky in the glass all at once, and then pour some more.
"Funny of you to ask, dear," I tell her, my heart hammering hard against my ribs. "You two weren’t expecting something like it, were you? Well, ta-da! surprise," I say as I lower my voice, a knot in my throat.
"You betrayed us," Lucas growls, closing the distance between us and taking the glass out of my hand. "YOU TOLD ME TO TRUST YOU," he shouts, throwing the glass against the wall with unmitigated rage. The glass shatters behind me into a thousand little pieces and the strong scent of the whisky, oak and spices, fills the whole office.
"Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare," I whisper at him, not even bothering to raise my voice. My soul is too fucking spent for that. "I trusted you too … and you stabbed me in the back. So fuck off with that betrayal bullshit," I continue, slowly going up to my feet and turning my back to him. I walk toward the small glass cabinet I have in one of the corners and take a new glass from the inside.
"You’ve lost it, Ares. You really have. I have no idea what's got into you, but this is not how I wanted things to end between us …" he insists, playing it off as if he’s the fucking hero in this story. Just like he always does. And, just like always, he’s trying to peg me as the fucking villain.
"Ares, please --" Daphne starts, her voice low and unsteady, but I don’t even let her speak.
"Just go. The two of you. Just fucking go and let me be," I whisper, sinking down on my chair and staring at them coldly. I see sorrow tainting the soft lines in Daphne’s face, and an urge to simply get up and wrap my arms around her and Lucas wells up in my mind; gritting my teeth, I put my heel down on top of that thought and crush it into dust.
"We’ll go," Lucas says, but then Daphne hands him something and he lays it carefully on top of my desk. "She’d
want you to have it." His words are sad and heavy, but he doesn’t wait to see what kind of effect they have on me. He simply continues. "Whatever you’re thinking right now, I really did trust you. And I … thought there was something between the three of us."
With that, he turns on his heels and, grabbing Daphne by the crook of her elbow, starts walking out of the office. Looking at me over her shoulder, Daphne offers me her parting words.
"Goodbye, Ares," she whispers, closing the door behind her after she leaves.
I stay there, sitting and unmoving, the shadows of my office once more closing in on me. The silence covers the room like a heavy blanket, oppressive and solitary.
"Fuck," I whisper under my breath, reaching for what Lucas left on my desk. It’s a neatly folded sweater, and I open it up, arms stretched in front of me. My eyes fall on the Harvard logo printed on the front of the sweater, and my heart simply stops beating.
I would've recognized this sweater anywhere.
I bring it up to my face and press it tight against me, clenching my jaw as I feel tears stinging my eyes.
This was Joanna’s sweater. It was what she was wearing on my first day at Harvard, when the three of us met. I still remember the way she looked when she put it on in the morning, wearing nothing else as she got out of the bed.
I knew Lucas had been the one keeping it, but I never dared to ask him for it. As much as the hate we felt toward each other grew over the years, we always respected whatever the other felt toward Joanna.
You don’t use love as a knife.
Jesus, what the fuck am I doing? Sitting in my office like a miserable bastard, getting drunk in the dark and nursing my hate. I didn’t even want to hear what Daphne and Lucas came here to say. I just spew my hatred at them, the pain I felt drowning out everything else.
But the sorrow in her eyes as she spoke, her soft voice calling my name … and Lucas’ words … he thought I was the one betraying them.
Have I been played? Has Seymour pulled my strings and, just like some stupid fucking puppet, did I dance to his tune?
Trust me, I asked Lucas a few days ago. And he did trust me; I believe that.
Now’s my turn to trust him.
Daphne
Two.
That's how many weeks advance notice the Federal Reserve Bank of New York gives Carter Jeffries and Union Airlines to prepare themselves to testify in front of a full investigative committee. Of course, they named Lucas as the person who would testify on behalf of Carter Jeffries.
And they named me as the person who would carry the flag for Union Airlines.
It’s going to be a circus. A shit show. Pretty useless. More like a witch hunt than anything.
But we have to go.
To not go means that the Federal Reserve can place both Carter Jeffries and Union Airlines in positions where we’d go out of business. They could declare that Carter Jeffries, with its operations in money markets, is systemically important to the United States economy. That’s a fancy way to say "too big to fail," which is a fancy way to say increased regulatory oversight.
If we still don’t cooperate, the Fed could place us on a lending watch list. Which means that banks and other financial institutions that lend to us would face greater regulatory and financial oversight. All that means is that banks would stop lending to us. So they wouldn't be harassed by the Fed. Which means we’d go out of business without the ability to borrow money.
But even more damaging, the Federal Reserve could bring about financial crimes indictments against both companies if they wanted to and felt there was due cause.
That’s right.
This shadowy group of bankers controls most of the United States economy. And people have always said things about them, but I’d always just shrugged it off because it didn't affect me.
Until it did.
This shadowy, secret, cabal of bankers can bring about indictments that lead to the loss of business licenses by corporations that do business in the United States.
You know how you have a Social Security Number? Corporations have a FEIN. It’s registered with the IRS.
If we don't testify, they’ll take away the FEIN. Which means we would no longer be a corporation in the eyes of the government.
Killing us.
Destroying at least 300,000 jobs at Union Airlines. And at least 100,000 at Carter Jeffries. We wouldn’t be able to pay salaries because the bank accounts would be frozen. We wouldn’t be able to do anything.
They’re threatening at least half a million Americans. All to get Lucas and I to testify.
With two weeks to go.
One billion.
That’s how many dollars the government of the United States is now offering to purchase Union Airlines.
This is the revised bid that was delivered to my office 48 hours after the Federal Reserve called on Lucas and I to testify.
"One billion dollars?" Lucas asks, that night as I tell him over dinner. "That’s a steep drop."
He’s understating the obvious, of course. For a government that was willing to pay $1.1 trillion to purchase the globe-girdling airline to now offer a paltry one billion dollars. It’s basically fuck you money.
"You know why Seymour is offering this, right?" I ask. Lucas looks at me and nods.
"He doesn’t think that Carter Jeffries will be around much longer to deliver any sort of counter proposal. That we won't be able to make much of any counter bid after the Fed is done with us."
It’s a depressing thought.
"And Ares?" I ask, looking at Lucas. "What about Strong Capital?"
Lucas shrugs. "Seymour is assuming that Strong Capital won’t be in the running for the airline anymore. For the same reason that Ares is helping the government. And with no other company out there who made it to this round, once Carter Jeffries and Strong Capital are eliminated from consideration, all you have left is the government."
They told me to not go up against the government. That you’d never win. That simple individuals stood no match to the power and might and soul-crushing ability of the nations institutions to just crush our spirit.
But I didn’t listen. Because I was Daphne Kane. I was the CEO extraordinaire.
Well, now I was paying the price.
Twelve.
That’s how many hours a day Lucas and I are spending preparing for testifying in front of the Fed.
What?
You thought we were just going to head on over and get crucified without putting up a fight. Honestly, hun, if that’s what you thought then you haven’t really gotten to know either Lucas or I at all. Because we would never do that. I don’t think Lucas for one moment considered throwing in the towel.
"At the heart of the matter is the basic fact that they don’t like the fact that you had sex with both the suitors for Union Airlines," Vicky Ketchum is telling Lucas and I one afternoon during lunch. Vicky is my personal lawyer who is handling all matters about the Federal Reserve investigation as it pertains to me.
"What do you mean, babe?" I ask Vicky. She and I go way back. She was my big sister in my sorority and we used to be roommates. We used to get wild together—for a while we used to suck the same cock together whenever we had a guy. We would both use our mouths simultaneously and then bet how long he would last seeing us use our tongues on his cock. He’d explode in one of our mouths and we’d swap the cum back and forth until he was hard again. If he was able to cum again then he was a keeper. Otherwise, we’d usually toss him out.
Now Vicky is a lawyer at Quinn Harris Stevens and looks at me with a studious look.
"It basically means that the only thing the government can really say is that you don’t fit the moral criteria to hold high office within your corporations. That your very presence creates a negative equity in your companies that destroys shareholder value."
"And this is because we all had sex together?" Lucas asks incredulously.
Vicky shrugs. "The government can use any line of attack it wan
ts. But this is the simplest, and easiest to prove. Namely because all they have to do is put Ares on the stand and get him to admit what everyone already knows happened. At that point, the Federal Reserve can take any action it wants, including revoking your FEIN, and then Union Airlines assets can be purchased for pennies on the dollar."
It’s not a pretty picture going on in my head.
"So how do we stop them?" I ask.
"It’s going to take work and a lot of hours," Vicky says, taking the check as it comes. "You might as well let me pick up lunch because of what I’m gonna have to bill you."
Ten.
That’s how many times I know for certain that Ares has tried to contact us. When I say us, I mean either myself of Lucas. I’ve gotten one ring on my phone before the phone hangs up. Or an email that gets deleted before I read it.
I know that Ares is trying to reach out. And the one time I do get the phone before he hangs up, I don’t let the opportunity go.
It’s three days before I have to testify in front of the Federal Reserve.
"Ares," I say into the phone. "Don’t hang up."
There’s silence on the other end of the line.
"Listen, I don’t know what Seymour has told you, Ares," I say into the line. I notice Lucas come behind me. "Don’t hang up, okay?" I ask.
I can hear his breathing. I can imagine him on the other end of the line. Probably drinking a scotch. Probably missing us. I can tell that he misses us. Because deep down, I know he loves us.
But maybe he doesn't realize how much we love him.
"Ares, don’t answer if you don't want, just listen okay?" I say, hoping he doesn't hang up. "I love you."
Silence. Not even breathing now. Not even the faint tinkling of the ice in the cup that I thought I heard before.
