by Sweet, Izzy
Lying makes me so uncomfortable. I want to squirm under his scrutiny. The tables have turned so quickly. I’m acting out of pure self-preservation. Why is my anger fleeing when I need it?
“No,” I say quietly. I wish it were true.
“I care for you.”
Damn him, why is he doing this?
“I don’t believe you,” I try to say quietly but my voice cracks.
I can feel the threat of tears stinging my eyes. I need to get out of here before I break down in front of him, again.
“Just the thought of you with another man makes me want to break something.”
He takes another step towards me.
I’m so tempted to start throwing his own shoes at him. He takes yet another step.
I snap at him, “What do you want from me, Andrew?”
He stops and his lips pull down into a scowl, “Call me AJ.”
I cross my arms over my chest, “No, Andrew.”
“Please don’t do this, Hailey,” Andrew says, his voice suddenly desperate.
It catches me off guard. I blink at him.
“Me do this? This is all you.”
“Please, Hailey.”
Dammit, I don’t understand him. How can he plead with me like that? I look at his face, at his sad, puppy dog eyes and I’m starting to feel sorry for him. This is bad, this is so bad.
I need to get out of here. I can’t trust myself with him. He has a magical ability to make me do things that are bad for me, that I know are not in my own best interest. It’s like there’s something more at work here and I’m helpless against it.
If I stare into his eyes for too long or if he somehow manages to touch me, I’m done for. Just the thought fills me with uneasy energy. I try to step around him but, of course, he steps in front of me, blocking my path.
“Don’t leave.”
I should leave. I should push past him and make a run for the door. Instead, I find myself asking, “Why should I stay?” As if I just want him to give me a good reason.
“Because we have an agreement.”
Seriously? I blink at him in disbelief. “I should stay because of the agreement?”
Andrew nods, looking utterly serious, “Yes.”
I’ve had enough. I don’t know what I was hoping for… one last chance for him to somehow make this right, perhaps. It certainly wasn’t him throwing our agreement in my face
“Get out of my way,” I snap and try to push past him.
He has the nerve to grab me by the shoulder to stop me, “No, Hailey. I can’t let you leave like this.”
I try to push his hand off of me, “Let go of me.”
Why is he making this so hard? It’s already hard enough as it is.
His fingers tighten on my shoulder, then I feel him trying to pull me closer.
“Hailey, I love you, please don’t leave.”
I hate it. I hate hearing him say he loves me. I feel the tears again, but I can’t hold them back. What did I do to deserve such torture? How can he be so cruel?
“Please don’t cry, baby.” He starts to wipe the tears from my cheeks, but I turn my face away.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask.
“Because I love you.”
I stand there, trembling beneath his grasp. Hearing him say he loves me again has me sobbing.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look at me, Hailey.” Andrew grabs me by the cheeks. I try to look everywhere else but at him but his entire face fills up my blurry vision.
“I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
Staring into his eyes, I believe him, even though I really don’t want to.
“Then why didn’t you break up with Tiffany? Why do all this?”
I’m so sick and tired of these damn games. I’m sick of this emotional rollercoaster I’m trapped on. I’m going to emotionally puke if I don’t get off of it.
Andrew pulls back and looks away. For a moment I think he’s going to let me go. His hands drop to my shoulders. Then his eyes capture mine again, and there’s such torment in them, it hurts my own soul.
“When you agreed to our arrangement, you didn’t ask if I had a girlfriend. I don’t see how it changes the situation.”
“It changes everything,” I sob at him.
I push at him, but he stands his ground. I hit him and he captures that wrist. I lash out at him with my other hand and I get a good, solid punch in before he captures that one as well.
“This changes nothing, Hailey. Nothing.”
I try to yank my hands out of his. His fingers only tighten.
“It changes it for me.”
“Why does it change it for you?”
“Because I didn’t know you were cheating!”
I didn’t ask him if he had a girlfriend because I assumed he didn’t have one. I can’t even count how many women he’s paraded through the office, never dating one for more than a week, at most. I just assumed if he had a girlfriend, I would have known about it. It would have been big news around the office.
“You didn’t ask if I had a girlfriend,” he repeats and I groan at him.
He pulls me closer by my wrists, bringing me almost into his chest.
“You didn’t ask because you didn’t care, did you?”
“I care!”
I look up at him. I hate being so close. He towers over me and makes me feel so small. His eyes are dark as they bore down on me. I so want to squirm. The way he looks at me both terrifies me and excites me in the same breath.
“Tiffany doesn’t matter, forget about her.”
His head dips down as if he’s going to kiss me. I turn my face away.
“I can’t forget.”
“Let me help you, then.”
His lips touch my neck and oh, how my body responds to it. I hate it. I hate that he has such power over me. That he can bring me to pleasure even when I’m angry at him.
“Let me go. I don’t want to forget.”
Andrew sighs, his breath warm as it rolls over the moist spot he just left with his kiss. But at least he stops kissing my neck.
“If you had known I had a girlfriend when I made you my offer, would you have not accepted it?”
I try to imagine how I would have felt in that situation. Would I have accepted the offer knowing he had a girlfriend? I honestly don’t know. Part of me wants to say no. But the way he weakens me, I know part of me may have still said yes.
“I don’t know,” I admit and it feels a lot like defeat.
“She means nothing to me, nothing,” he says adamantly. “You mean everything to me, Hailey, everything. I don’t just want you, I need you.”
How can he say such a thing? How can he completely disarm me with such honestly? Instead of feeling pleasure from his words, I only feel more hurt.
“I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
I’ve never understood cheating. If you don’t want to be exclusive with someone, why not just break up with them? Why doesn’t he just break it off with her?
“I thought I could get you out of my system. I thought that if I could finally kiss you, taste you, and make love to you, that I would stop being tormented by the desire to do it. After that first night, when I still wanted you, I thought that one week would be enough. Now… now, I’m starting to believe it will never be enough. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get enough of you.”
I remember him telling me when he proposed the arrangement in the first place that he just wanted a week. He only needed a week….
“So where do we go from here then? What do you want out of this, Andrew?”
He winces when I purposely call him Andrew again. I get the feeling I might as well have slapped him.
“You promised you would stay with me.”
Between his professions of love and keeping track of what I thought I was agreeing to compared to what I actually agreed to, my head is spinning. M
y tears have slowed and now I’m starting to feel that bit of numbness I usually experience after being really upset.
“And if I keep my promise, then what? Where do we go from there?”
“We both get what we wanted.”
I don’t even know what I want anymore, but I bite my lip to keep from telling him that.
“I’m sorry for all of this, Hailey. You don’t deserve it.”
Damn, he’s going to have me crying again. I think he realizes it because he pulls me closer and starts rubbing my back. I let him. Right now, I’m weak like that. He’s breaking me down, brick by brick.
“I’m an asshole and you don’t deserve any of this shit I’ve put you through. I don’t deserve you.” He sucks in a ragged breath and releases it as he says, “But I need you.”
The way he says he needs me sends a shiver down my spine and prickles across my skin.
“I need you, only you. You are all I care about.”
He steals a kiss from my lips. I don’t want to feel my body roaring to life with his touch. But it does. I don’t want to feel myself giving in as his tongue pushes past my lips. But I can’t help it.
I want to forgive him, I realize, as it goes from me letting him kiss me to me kissing him back. Right now, forgiving him is easier than walking away.
His tongue tangles with mine. Soon I find myself pressing myself into him and wrapping my arms around his neck.
I was meant for this. On some deeper level, my body just knows it was created to mold against him. My breasts were meant to press into his chest. My hips were meant to meet his hips. All our nooks and crannies align at all the right angles, in all the right places.
He kisses me long and deep. It’s as if he’s showing me with his mouth all the things he’s unable to say. It’s as if he’s trying to kiss away all the pain. Lulling me into a haze of pleasure that dulls the emotional ache.
His hands slide down my back ever so slowly, as if he’s committing me to memory. My back arches instinctively as his fingers trail down my spine, thrusting out my breasts. I never think of my breasts unless I’m with him. I never remember they exist until moments like this. I realize now that they feel heavy and wanting. I want him to touch them.
He grabs two handfuls of my ass and pulls my hips into him. The hard bulge trapped inside his pants grinds into my belly. I gasp into his mouth. How did he get hard so quickly? He hungrily swallows the gasp.
His strong fingers suddenly curl and dig into my cheeks. I rise up on my tip toes in response. As I lower back down his bulge slides along me. My nerves are alive with the friction.
The sting of pain from his digging fingers starts to bring me back to reality. He senses me pulling back from him. While his right-hand squeezes me harder, pulling me back into him, his other hand lifts and becomes entangled in my hair as he grabs me by the back of the head.
His kiss intensifies. I’m trapped in his grasp with his one hand on my head and his other hand on my ass. His grip is unbreakable and he’s pulling me in deeper and deeper.
I feel myself being bent back, forced off balance. I grab at him, clutching at his shirt. It’s starting to feel like he’s trying to push every inch of himself into me. He’s pouring himself into my mouth and pushing himself against my body as if he could somehow fuse himself with me. It’s not going to work. He can’t force himself past my skin. If he keeps trying, we’re both going to crash.
There’s too much of him and I fear I can’t swallow it all. I struggle to keep up with the overwhelming strokes of his tongue. I struggle not to snap under the pressure of his weight. I make a small sound of distress and I feel him start to pull back.
Air hits my face. I can breathe. My face feels hot. My lips feel swollen.
He’s torn his mouth away from me and staring at me, panting.
“Are you alright? Did I hurt you?” he asks.
His hooded eyes roam over me.
I nod my head at first but then shake my head. I just confused myself. He’s successfully kissed me into a stupefied daze.
“I’m sorry,” he sighs between his heavy breathing.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I say breathlessly.
My ass is throbbing a little bit but it’s a tender pain, and I kinda like it. He untangles his fingers from my hair and strokes my cheek. Then he runs his thumb across my bottom lip and looks like he’s about to kiss me again.
“Are you sure?”
I nod my head again and teasingly the tip of my tongue meets his thumb. His breath hitches. It’s a sound I don’t hear enough of. A sound I really, really like. His eyes look ready to roll back in his head as I suck his thumb into my mouth.
“Hailey…” he groans.
I pull back a hard suckle. He rocks on his feet.
I don’t know what’s got into me. I just recognized an opportunity to grab some control of the situation and I stuck my tongue out and licked it.
I start to sink in my teeth.
“Hailey…” he says this time with his voice full of warning.
Maybe part of me wants to hurt him but I back off with his warning. I let up on the teeth and he starts to pull his thumb from my mouth. I pout at him with my eyes and he pushes it back in.
“You like that?” he asks, his eyes now practically glowing with heat.
I show him how much I like it by working my tongue against him. Giving him a taste of what I’d do to other parts of his body.
“Fuck, baby,” he groans and this time his eyes do start rolling back.
I don’t know what’s come over me. The rush of power must be going to my head. My tongue wiggles back and forth as he thrusts his thumb in and out of my mouth. He tastes a little salty. I can’t help but wonder what other parts of him taste like. His thumb is soft but I’ve felt the skin of his cock, it’s more like velvet. Would it feel like hot velvet in my mouth?
He suddenly pulls his thumb out of my mouth with a loud pop. Before I fully comprehend what’s happening, he’s shoving his hand down the boxer shorts I’m wearing. That hot wet thumb of his seeks out and finds my clit. He presses his thumb against my clit as if he was pushing a button.
I find myself squeaking his name, “Andrew!”
His eyes narrow and he growls out angrily, “Call me AJ.”
His thumb works my clit, pushing and swirling. It’s as if everything below my hips was suddenly overloaded with intense, rippling energy.
I squeeze my legs together, but that doesn’t stop him. I grab at his shoulders as hot, pulsing sensation courses through me. I’m on fire. My fingers tighten, my nails bite into his skin.
“Please,” I groan.
I feel like my own eyes are about to roll back in my head. It’s so much sensation so soon, it’s overwhelming and I can’t fight it.
His wet thumb works back and forth, showing me no mercy. “What’s my name?”
“AJ,” I sigh.
I arch, my body tensing, my muscles preparing. My hips rise up and before I even realize what I’m doing, my legs start to spread and I’m rocking my hips, falling into his rhythm.
Up, up I go, riding the lightning. I’m charged, the friction of his thumb feeding me. It’s as if every part of me, every fiber of my being is alive and angry with electricity.
His other fingers move. I feel them cup around me, holding me in the palm of his hand. He makes a rumbling sound, like thunder, then I feel his fingers getting dangerously close to my ass.
I jerk and his grip tightens. Harder, harder he pushes me. His thumb grinds into me. Smashing, circling. He’s going to make me explode right here, in his closet, all over his hand.
“AJ,” I moan out. I’m so close to my release I can taste it.
Already, I can see tiny sparks flashing before my eyes. I can feel my muscles so tightly coiled they’re ready to release their tension. My head tips back, I’m giving in.
It stops. It all just stops.
My eyes pop open. I so don’t understand.
“I love you,” he say
s and I feel like someone just punched me in the chest.
He’s still holding me, his grip tighter than ever. He squeezes me hard. I squirm. I can feel my heartbeat pounding in my clit.
“Do you love me, Hailey?”
Of course I love him. I wouldn’t still be here in this situation if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have forgiven him then kissed him. He makes me weak and drives me crazy. I’m doing all these things I wouldn’t normally do because my heart is utterly and completely madly in love with him. But to actually say it, to actually admit it, it feels like giving up the last card I’m holding in my hand. Once I say it, it’s out there, forever, and I can never take it back.
I hesitate. I feel his thumb push into my clit.
“This is so unfair,” I groan.
He flashes a wicked grin. “You know I’m more than willingly to play dirty to get what I want.”
“Are you sure this is really the way you want…” I don’t even get to finish. His thumb rubs all over me. I’m shuddering. I’m so close. Everything that was pent up has swept over me with a vengeance.
He stops suddenly. I want to die. I cry out and roll my hips.
“Say it,” he demands.
I bite my lip and shake my head.
“Last chance, Hailey.”
He tortures me by just pushing the pad of his thumb lightly against my clit.
I just can’t bring myself to do it. Every nerve in me is screaming in misery. We were so close, we were almost there. Now I’m one giant, throbbing ache of need.
AJ smiles as if he was wanting it to happen just like this. He pulls his hand from my boxers. I almost face plant. My knees wobble, my legs are giving out of me.
He quickly grabs me. He sweeps me up as if I weigh nothing. Then says, “Have it your way,” as he carries me from the closet.
Chapter Twenty-One
I suppose I should get used to this, AJ whisking me away when he’s ready to have his way with me. At the moment, however, I’m so sexually frustrated that I glare at him angrily as he carries me to his bed.
He walks up to the edge of his mattress and grins. It’s one of those, cocky, I know I’m hot shit grins, then he just drops me. I squeal and bounce once, twice, then start to roll away from him.
